SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/22/2015
6:58 PM
My Worship Time Focus: During the
Invasion PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
38:14-39:8
Message of the
verses: I will not copy and paste
all of these verses at one time as we will not look at all of them on this SD.
I just can’t help but think of Pharaoh when he was
holding all Israel as slaves and would not let them go and we actually read
that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and the reason for that was so that God could
destroy them. Now let’s go back to the
book of Genesis and look at chapter fifteen which is actually a part of the
Abrahamic covenant which we will again comment on in a minute. “13 God said to Abram, "Know for certain
that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where
they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 “But I will also judge the nation
whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.” One of the purposes for this to happen was
that God would be receiving glory when Egypt was destroyed and when Israel left
Egypt. We know that forty years later
when Israel was crossing the Jordan River the spies when they went into see
Rahab the harlot were told by her that the people of Canaan were frightened by
Israel. Now God will also receive glory
when the nations mentioned in this section are destroyed by Him, and something
else is that all of these nations that are mentioned here have or will have
persecuted Israel in one way or another and God will destroy them for that
reason for that is what He told Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 which is the first part
of the Abrahamic covenant. “1 Now the
LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives
And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will
make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so
you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless
you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of
the earth will be blessed."”
Just think about what will
go on in the war room of these nations as they plan on coming down to defeat
Israel, but what they are going to talk about is exactly what God wants them to
do. This reminds me something that
happened in the Old Testament time of the kings of both the Northern Kingdom
and the Southern Kingdom. Jehoshaphat
was the king of Judah and Ahab was the king of Israel and they wanted to go
together to fight an enemy. In the first
place Jehoshaphat had no business going to see Ahab but he did. All the false prophets in Israel were telling
them to go up and fight against their
enemy, but Jehoshaphat wanted to hear from a true prophet of the Lord and so
Ahab got one for them and the following is what he said to them: “18
Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Did I not tell you
that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?" 19 Micaiah said,
"Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His
throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His
left. 20 “The LORD said, ’Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at
Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. 21 “Then a spirit
came forward and stood before the LORD and said, ’I will entice him.’ 22 “The
LORD said to him, ’How?’ And he said, ’I will go out and be a deceiving spirit
in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ’You are to entice him and
also prevail. Go and do so.’ 23 “Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a
deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has
proclaimed disaster against you."”
The same thing may be what happens when all of these nations get together
to come up against Israel in the later years and the same thing will happen to
them that happened to Ahab, they will loose.
14
"Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, ’Thus says the Lord GOD,
"On that day when My people Israel are living securely, will you not know
it? 15 "You will come from your
place out of the remote parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all
of them riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army; 16 and you will come up against My people Israel
like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My
land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before
their eyes, O Gog’ (Ezek. 38:14-16).”
This is the beginning of what will happen just before the battle
begins. “17 ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Are you the
one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel,
who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against
them? 18 “It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of
Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My
anger. 19 “In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there
will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. 20 “The fish of the
sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things
that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will
shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep
pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground. 21 “I will call
for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD.
"Every man’s sword will be against his brother. 22 “With pestilence and
with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on
his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with
hailstones, fire and brimstone. 23 "I will magnify Myself, sanctify
Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know
that I am the LORD’’(Ezekiel 38:17-23).”
I don’t think that it is any coincidence that I am studying the seal and
the trumpet judgments in the book of Revelation at this same time and one of
the judgments is an earthquake, a very strong one and some of the same language
that is used in this section of Ezekiel is used in Revelation too. Speaking of all the devastation that will
happen is very similar and perhaps this is speaking of the same time period for
both prophecies will happen during the latter years. One other thing I want to look at before we
stop this first part of this section and that is that God says that the OT
prophets have prophecies about this as we look at verse seventeen. John MacArthur writes the following in his
Study Bible note on verse seventeen: “This
refers to the general references to this time and the participants (cf. Joel
3:9-17; Amos 5:11, 12; Zep. 3:8). Even Daniel (Da. 2:41-44) referred to this at
least 3 decades prior to Ezek. 38. The
nature of the question presupposes that the previous generalities are now begin
particularized in the person of Gog.”
Dr.
Wiersbe writes about three reasons to bring God down as seen in verse 23. “First, this victory will reveal the greatness of the Lord as He displays His power before the
nations (v.23). There is no evidence
that the Israelite forces ever confronted the invading army. The Lord intervened and used weapons that no
general on earth could use—rain, hailstones, and fire and brimstone from
heaven! In fact, the invading army will
get out of control and destroy itself!
This victory will also reveal His holiness as He
judges the sins of the leader of Magog and deals with his enmity against the
Jews. The wealth of the Holy Land
belongs to the Lord, and He has shared it with His people Israel, and the other
nations have no right to exploit it.
Third, the victory will make Jehovah known to the Gentile
nations, and the world will see that the God of Israel is the only
true and living God.” 4/22/2015 8:12 PM
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