Complaint

 I must confess that after fifty years of being a believer, I’m tired of hearing or reading the supposed Gog and Magog scenarios, which recently have been on the increase. It seems that the evangelical world is stuck, or obsessed with one prophetic chapter of the Bible, and that is Ezekiel 38.  Every time there is some kind of skirmish or rumors of war here in the Middle East, it obviously means that the Jews are going to experience the inevitable fulfillment of the Christians’ dispensational ideas and imagination.   However, the scripture is quite clear in regard to the timing of these events. There is an unmistakable hint, and thus one does not have to dig very far in order to discover the set timing. It actually appears in the very same chapter, in verse 8, that says the following: “After many days you shall be mustered [Gog and all the nations with them]; in the latter years you shall go against a land restored from war, a land where people were gathered from many nations on the mountains of Israel, which had long lain waste; its people were brought out from the nations and now are living in safety, all of them” (Ezekiel 38:8 emphases added).  

Let’s introduce some reality into the above scripture.  Rimona was born in 1950, two years after the Jewish State was founded. I asked her if she had ever experienced or known a time when the nation was restored from war and living safely.  Her response was, “war broke out upon the declaration of its founding and has continued ever since.” I came to Israel in 1978, and I can confirm that the land is still receiving the blood of its slain. I don’t have to be a prophet in order to predict the near future; there are many scriptures that still have to be fulfilled before we will find ourselves living securely in all the areas promised to our forefathers.  Islam cannot and will not allow Israel to exist as a sovereign state, even though it may use so-called peace accords for a temporary ceasefire (called “hudna” in Arabic. You may look up this Islamic concept in Wikipedia). 

What about the mountains of Israel?   The above-quoted verse states that many will come back from the nations and settle on those mountains.  There is a tendency to assume that we know where these ancient mountains are, but we need to realize that those mountains go up into Lebanon, Bashan, and Gilead, which are to be settled by the returning House of Joseph (see Zechariah 10:6-12).  Once Yeshua the Kinsman Redeemer of Jacob/Israel rejoins the two parts of the nation in all of the Promised Land, the peace and safety that Ezekiel 38:8 announces will be established.  Additionally, Ezekiel 37:25-28 and 34:25-29 also confirm YHVH’s finishing touches on the restoration of the whole house of Israel, by the covenant of peace which He will make with them (that is, Israel and Judah).