SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/20/2015
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Introduction to Ezekiel 38-39
I have already mentioned how much this section in Ezekiel
means to me as chapters 36-39 were used by the Lord to help in the process of
being called to the Lord for salvation back in January of 1974. Dr. Wiersbe entitles this twelfth chapter of
his commentary on Ezekiel “God Protects the Nation” and that is truly what
these two chapters are all about.
This section of Scripture is one of the most difficult
passages to understand as to when it fits in on God’s timetable of end-time Prophecy
and we will look at some scenarios as to how different people have plugged this
into the end time prophecies. First I
want to tell what to me was a pretty amusing story that happened to me and my
wife back in late January of 1978 as we first attended the Moody Bible
Institute’s Founders week, as it was suggested to me by the man who mentored me
for four years after I became a believer to attend this conference because the
theme was on prophecy. It was this event
that the Lord used in my life to bring me to the first church that I was to
join since becoming a believer four years earlier. God was very patient with me but now it was
time for me to join a church. I have always
loved all the Word of God, but especially prophecy so I looked with great
anticipation to be going to my first Founder’s Week. The weather that year was full of great snow
storms as the big blizzard of 1978 hit
Cleveland Ohio while my wife and I were on vacation in Key West Florida as we
woke up there Cleveland, Ohio was on the front page because of the huge snow
storm that hit it. Even in Key West the temperature
had dropped 20 degrees from the day before.
When we got back to Cleveland and snow was everywhere and we had to
Chicago the next day. We got there and
Chicago had a lot of snow too as it was hard to get around. Years later when we went to our 4th
or 5th Founders Week we saw 70 degrees there.
Our first day at Founder’s Week was on a Tuesday and Dr.
Jay Vernon McGee was the first speaker we heard and his text was from Ezekiel
38-39 and the name of his message was “When Russia Will Attack Israel.” There were camera men everywhere and news
people everywhere too. Dr. McGee goes up
to the podium and the first then that he tells everyone is that he had changed
his mind and he was going to talk about heaven that day and speak about the
Ezekiel passage on Thursday. I never saw
news men move so fast. You would have
thought that the place was on fire they moved so fast. They had no interest to hear about heaven as
I guess that was not as exciting to them as Russia attacking Israel. Thursday’s message was probably the second
time that I had heard this passage preached on and I have read many scenario’s
on how this passage will be fulfilled.
My Pastor at the church I began to attend, actually the second pastor
that was there wrote an article for the “Baptist Bulletin” on what were suppose
to be controversial texts in the Bible that he did not even believe that the
passage spoke about Russia, but countries in the Middle East, and since then I
have heard others speak of this possibility too. We will get into that later on as we study
this passage in greater detail.
We will read about a war that uses the words “Gog and
Magog,” and this is also used in the “Re 20:8 and will come out to deceive the
nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather
them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.” Some people think that this war will happen
at the end of the Millennial Kingdom as a result of this passage. I have to say that this is not the most
popular view as many people believe that this war will happen at a different
time than the Revelation passage speaks of.
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We know that the next prophetic event to take place is
the rapture of the church as spoken of by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and
this event can take place at any time.
However when we look at the book of Daniel and the 9th
chapter and verses 24-27 it tells us of the 70 week prophecy which when
properly explained is seventy-sevens and this comes out to 490 years. I have explained this prophecy in its entirety
when we looked at the book of Daniel, but I want to briefly go over it
here. The 490 year prophecy began in the
book of Nehemiah chapter two when Nehemiah asked the king to allow him to go
back to Jerusalem to finish rebuilding the city and the temple. After 483 years the prophecy stopped with
seven years still on it. The time when
it stopped is seen in Luke chapter 19 when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a
donkey to offer Himself as King, but they rejected Him and as Daniel’s prophecy
says they killed Him, but not for Himself.
The last seven years of this prophecy will begin when the person called
the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with Israel for seven years. This begins the Tribulation Period and in my
study on the book of Revelation I am going over this time period which is
spoken of from chapters six through nineteen.
It is during this time that many people believe that this war called God
and Magog will happen, however there are some who feel that it could happen
before the tribulation period begins.
After studying these for many years and getting other people’s opinion
my conclusion is that it will happen sometime during the Tribulation Period and
my main reason is that as we will see in this prophecy the attack will happen
when Israel is at peace and that is something that they have not had since they
became a nation in 1948. However the
peace treaty that the Antichrist will sign with them to begin the Tribulation
Period they will be at peace and so that is my reasoning. God knows how all of this is going to happen
and so to understand the options and to just know that it will happen is good
enough for me at this time. We will look
at these two chapters over the following week or so to better understand these
prophecies.
4/20/2015 10:43 PM
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