Gog; Israel’s Final Goliath…Ezekiel 34-39 pt 7

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,  Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,  And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:(Ezekiel 38:1-3)

Ezekiel 34-39 is a panoramic revelation of the things which must take place leading to the full restoration of Israel.First, in chapter 34, he addresses the Shepherds of Israel for they are the ones He holds responsible for scattering the flock,and particularly the last scattering of Israel, which takes place during the Tribulation period, a “Dark and cloudy day”.

Next in chapter 35, the Prophecy is directed towards the people who now usurp the land God gave to the seed of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob, by an unconditional covenant. They say the Land belongs to them, and boast that they are allowed to take possession of the Ancient high places of Israel.They hate the Jews with something called “An everlasting hatred”, and would shed the blood of Jews with impunity. God’s judgment draws nigh for Edom, as they are called, and desolation and destruction are their future.

In Ezekiel 36 God addresses the “Mountains of Israel”, land which is the very heart of Biblical Israel. It is called Judea and Samaria in most of scripture, but the world has a different plan for it. The prophecy says that “Talkers “have taken the subject of the mountains of Israel into their discussion,(This seems like a surreal prediction of the U.N. which does indeed spend about a third of its time discussing Israel, the status of Jerusalem and the disputed West bank), Judea and Samaria to God and to Bible Believers, but the new Palestinian State to the godless “world community”.

In Ezekiel 37 we see a resurrection of bones, re-assembled, and sinewed and covered with flesh, and at the last, breathed upon by the Spirit of God and brought to life. This is a prediction of the future of “the whole house of Israel”. After two thousand long years of Gentile domination, humiliation, pogram, persecution, and rejection, the nation of Israel is re-assembled before the eyes of the entire world. In may 1948, the nation is reborn, and Jews have been streaming back into Zion for the last 70 years from the four corners of the earth.

The bones are brought back together, the nation has been reborn, the sinew and meat are fleshing out those bones, but we await the one thing missing, for Israel must be spiritually born again,

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.  A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.( Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Before the spiritual regeneration of Israel occurs , however, we are informed by Ezekiel, Zechariah and the rest of the prophets, Israel must undergo her final conflict, she must be confronted by Gog and his army.

Who is Gog?

Gog is definitely an individual, a human being. I don’t believe Gog is a name though, it is a title, just as Pharaoh, Abimelech, Agag and Caesar are titles. Gog is the individual who stands as the representative of all of heathendom, in its resistance against the God of the Bible.

God is against Gog , just as earlier ( Eze 35) God had Ezekiel prophesy against Mt Seir.

Mt Seir represented “Edom” and the countries round about the Mountains of Jerusalem, who claim that the Holy Land belongs to them, and not to the Jews. They love to shed the blood of the JEws(Consider the current “Knife Intifada), therefore God will pursue them with blood, (violence,death,slaughter) and they shall not escape. This was a prophecy concerning the near neighbors of Israel,Jerusalem,  Judea,and  Samaria. These are the same nations we see in Psalm 83,

Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.  For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.  They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.  For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;  Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.(Psalm 83:!-8)

These Israel hating nations, mostly Sunni Muslim, are the same nations we have seen participating in the “Arab Spring” over the last four years. By the time of Ezekiel 38, something has happened to them, because they are conspicuously absent, when Gog comes with his confederacy of nations to spoil Israel.

Gog represents another constituency, he is the head of a different federation. The members of his army come from farther afield than Israel’s near neighbors. A good many of Gog’s troops are Shi’ite Muslims, from Iran, and others from the recently radicalized Turkey, others from Somalia, the Sudan and Eritrea. There will be others also from the now disintegrated nation of Libya and other parts of North Africa,

But Gog is from Magog, in the “uttermost North” of the mountains of Israel.Due north of Israel is Russia. Magog is specifically the ancient name for the Land just north of the Caucusus mountains, between Armenia and Ancient Media. These recently comprised several Russian buffer states, such as AZERBAJIAN, , TURKESTAN, CHECHNYA,  DAGESTAN as well as parts of  AFGHANISTAN, TURKEY, and IRAN.

It is amazing to see these scriptural alliances line up before our very eyes. Russia has become the champion of Iran, and Syria, Libya and the rest of the disaffected wider Muslim world which resents American Hegemony, and are even now filling in the vacuum left in the wake of the American retreat.