In Future Years You Will Invade the Land, Advancing Like a Storm Ezekiel 38: 7-9 DIG: Who will be the guardian of the invading force? Where will the invasion of Gog occur? What has to happen before it could take place? Next Ezekiel answers the question as to where the invasion takes place. With perfect irony, Ezekiel urges Gog, saying: Prepare yourself and be ready, you, even you, and all your companies that are gathered about you. In the Hebrew text there is a play upon words in this verse. The Hebrew word companies is cha-ha-lim, and the word for gathered is ha-nit-ha-lim. The root chahal is the same for both gathering and companies. So there is a play on words in the Hebrew text. In addition, the Holy Spirit orders Gog to be a guard for them (Ezekiel 38:7 NKJ). The Hebrew here is mishmar, which means a guard, a protector or security. It means to take command. As a result, Gog is told to be a protector, to take the responsibility for the whole invading force, and for the well-being of his soldiers. After many days you will be called to arms. These many days are equivalent to the days to come in Ezekiel 38:16. No student of prophecy can overlook this phrase because it has reference to Messianic times, that is, the era in which Israel’s natural history will find it’s fulfillment and climax.132 In future years Gog will invade the land of Israel that has recovered from war, whose people were regathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. The point here is that this invasion had to come some time after the first world wide regathering in unbelief, in preparation for the Great Tribulation. Since there was no Jewish state before 1948, this prophecy could not have been fulfilled before then. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety, without fear of invasion or deportation (Ezekiel 38:8). You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up. Because Jerusalem sits on a high plane within the mountains of Israel, it doesn’t matter what direction you are coming from, you have to go up to get there. Thus the Bible constantly makes reference to going up to Jerusalem, or going down from Jerusalem. The invaders will suddenly swoop in like an unexpected storm. Gog’s invading forces will cover the land, just like a cloud blankets the ground below (Ezekiel 38:9). This prophecy assumes that Israel has been re-gathered back in the Land in a state of unbelief. Ezekiel 36:24-27 and 37:1-14 provides the background for what is happening in Ezekiel 38:1 to 39:16. This restoration in unbelief is described in four specific ways. First, this Land had recovered from war. It means the Jews had to fight a war to regain it. This would not be true of the second world wide gathering before the Second Coming because Christ will turn the Land over to Israel at that time. Secondly, it will be a Land that is re-gathered from many nations. When the Jews returned to Israel in 1948 they came from ninety different countries. Thirdly, it will be a Land with mountains that had long been desolate. This has been the case for two thousand years. And lastly, now all of them live safely. Today the desolate places have been rebuilt and restored and the people live safely from invasion. All of these statements are true of present day Israel. Gog and his many nations will have enough power to carry out their satanic scheme. But so far the goal of the invading horde has not been revealed. That is what we discover next. The Teaching Ministry of Jay Mack 2006-2014
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 23:57:44 +0000
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