"And you, son of
man, prophesy against Gog and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against
you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.
(Eze. 39:1)
Now we come
around to one of the most famous prophecies in the Bible, the prophecy of
the attack of Gog, the prince of Meshech and Tubal, against the people of
Israel. Now we leave the realm of the
past and present and enter that of the future.
That is always fraught with problems.
It is also
why it is necessary to go back into the recent past and establish as a fact
that for over one hundred years the Bible’s prophecies of the restoration and
establishment as a nation were not only foretold with accuracy the events, but
the events not only unfolded through the years exactly as foretold, but
continue unfolding right before our very eyes.
This is how we can be sure that what comes next is indeed reliable. The problem for us is to be clear where we enter
the realm of supposition and where we tread on firm ground. Failure to do that is why many end up being
called false prophets when they were nothing of the kind. What most don’t realize is that there is a
big difference between faulty predictions and false prophecy.
Now, to find
out why and get a sense of how we may know the attack is coming we need to skip
ahead a little bit to verses 11-14:
“and say, 'I will go up against the
land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell
securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,' to
seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places
that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who
have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth. Sheba
and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you,
'Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off
plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to
seize great spoil?' "Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus
says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely,
will you not know it?” (Eze 38:11-14)
The motive
has two components. The first is that
Israel will be very profitable and have much “spoil,” that is, riches, to
plunder. Since time immemorial a Country’s
wealth or riches generally consisted of its natural resources. The Romans wiped out an entire people to get
at the Gold their land had in the ground.
The same happened to a number of indigenous peoples here in the United
States and elsewhere in more recent times.
Today when the most valuable commodity earth wide in an economy which
depends on energy oil and gas are two such sources of wealth nations are very
willing to go to war over. Recently in Israel
and off its coast it was discovered that Israel has a great abundance of both,
enough to rival the Gulf Coast Arabs.
Energy poor, yet militarily powerful countries to the North, such as
Russia and Turkey already look with greed on the discoveries so close and ripe
for the picking to their South in a little country already loathed by the rest
of the world. Could the temptation at
some point just be too much?
Well let’s
go back now to the first part of the chapter:
“The word of the LORD came to me:
"Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief
prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus says the
Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.
And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you
out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor,
a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. Persia,
Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all
his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his
hordes—many peoples are with you. "Be ready and keep ready, you and all
your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them.” (Eze 38:1-7)
Take a
moment and look at the photo at the top of the page. There we find the locations of the peoples
mentioned in the verses we just quoted.
Russia and Turkey in the North are quite prominent and both
traditionally hate Israel. Both are
energy poor and would find the energy wealth of Israel a tempting prize
indeed. That is, if the potential pieces
we see falling in place are tempting enough.
They are also joined by Iran in the attack and reinforced by the Arab
states to the South and West. But
something is missing:
“After many days you will be
mustered. In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored
from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the
mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought
out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them. You will advance,
coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all
your hordes, and many peoples with you. "Thus says the Lord GOD: On that
day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme and
say, 'I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the
quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having
no bars or gates,'” (Eze 38:8-11)
I did it
this way because of something very important noted in this passage. Missing from the list of peoples attacking
Israel in this prophecy are the Arab people which immediately surround it, the
ones we saw in the 83rd Psalm.
Something happened to them. We
get a clue to that in verse eight were we are told that the Jews are “restored from war,” that is, who just
fought and won a war. So somehow the long
war prophesied in the 83rd Psalm comes to a successful conclusion,
by some sort of victory and the people of Israel appear to be secured, secure
enough that they think they can now cut back on
their military and enough the fruits of peace. But as we see here their military
vulnerability makes them easy pickings in the minds of Russia and her allies
and they invade Israel intent on plundering “spoil.”
“You will come from your place out of
the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them
riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. You will come up against my
people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring
you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I
vindicate my holiness before their eyes. "Thus says the Lord GOD: Are you
he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in
those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? But on
that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the
Lord GOD, my wrath will be roused in my anger.” (Eze 38:15-18)
So Russia
will attack as the description of Gog’s force as coming from the “uttermost
parts of the north” indicates. God
brings him against the land and they are “like a cloud covering the land.” I recently listened to a discourse which
proposed that Obadiah prophesied in more detail as to what will go on at the
final invasion and battle. The speaker believes
that verse eleven of Obadiah predicts that the forces of Gog and his allies
will successfully invade the land Israel and occupy it, setting the stage for
Armageddon and God’s liberation of his people in such a way nobody will be able
to deny what happened and who did it.
But where
are Israel’s allies? Well, the speaker
addressed that as well. He believes that
Edom represents Israel’s “brothers,” the Christian nations who are mostly
allied with God’s people. It appears
from verses ten through fourteen of Obadiah that they will stand aside and do
nothing on Israel’s behalf. That would
further make the point that God alone will be Israel’s deliverer. For those who don’t think that possible just
look around us today.
There is a
campaign to isolate Israel going on among the Christian nations as my dear
readers read this post. Holocaust
deniers have pretty much overtaken academia and the media and they are working
their magic with their propaganda blaming all the ills of the Middle East on
Israel. We see demonstrations at our
universities demanding divestment of university holdings of Israeli investments
and Israel is vilified on campuses. We
also see a constant stream of UN resolutions treating Israel as an invader and
of “Palestine” and human rights abuser as Israel defends herself from constant attack. All of this is designed to pry Israel’s
allies away from her and will be successful if the speaker we listened to
interprets Obadiah correctly.
However it
finally plays out, one thing is certain; God will destroy Gog’s forces in such
a way there will be no doubt who is responsible for Gog’s defeat (Eze
38:17-39:24). It is our belief that
this, on one level, will be the Battle of Armageddon mentioned in the New
Testament (Rev 16:12-16). As with many
other prophecies in the Bible we believe there are often several levels to
prophecies, but that is another topic for another time.
So what is
the end, why should we look forward to all of this and why should we be in
expectation of it? That, my readers, is
mentioned at the end of this prophecy:
“"Therefore thus says the Lord
GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house
of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name. They shall forget their
shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell
securely in their land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them
back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies' lands, and through
them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall
know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the
nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them
remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from
them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord
GOD." (Eze 39:25-29)
Yes, Israel
will be restored to her rightful place as the shining one among the nations. She will stray no more because she will be
the example for the nations during the millennial reign of the Lord. Ezekiel then goes on in Chapter forty to
describe the temple he saw in his famous vision and the conditions we can look
forward to then. So, dear readers, we
can see why the prophecies of Israel are so important to us and why we should
be familiar with them. This series was
by no means comprehensive. There are
many more prophecies of Israel’s restoration and delivery and her role in the
kingdom to come. It is our hope that
this series will inspire our readers to become more familiar with these
prophecies and to pay more attention to world events so that they may know
where they stand in the prophetic stream of time and not be dismayed and frightened
as world events play themselves out to their inevitable end.
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