Sign #6: War In Israel

As you know, this is a series of messages titled, Seven Signs of Christ’s Return. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth. There’s no question about it. Nothing could be more certain than that. As a matter of fact, He’s going to come back to the Mount of Olives. He’s going to come back to the city of Jerusalem, the Scripture teaches. And when that happens all people will see Him. The Scripture says, “Every eye will see Him.”

We believe that before that time, Christians are going to be snatched away in what is generally called the rapture, and the rapture is an event that could happen at any time. I do hope you’re ready if that event should happen. But also, the Scripture would tell us during that period of time between the rapture and the glorious appearing of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is a time of great tribulation and difficulty, a time of war and distress.

Now, if you have been with us, you know we have talked about various signs of Christ’s return. Number one was that Israel was reborn. We spoke about the unification of Europe—that was number two. The rise of a world dictator. Also the rise of a one-world religion. The temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem. And today we come to a mysterious war that is really fought in Israel, and it’s won by God.

It is indeed an interesting passage of Scripture that gives us this information, and it is this war that eventually leads to the “biggie,” which we’re going to consider next week, namely the battle of Armageddon, and the actual return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem. But the passage I have in mind is found in the writings of an Old Testament prophet by the name of Ezekiel, and if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to turn there. I shall remind you, in context Ezekiel is talking about the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and to Israel, and then he talks about what’s going to happen once they are there. For example, Ezekiel 36:24–27, he says, “I will take you from the nations (God is speaking) and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”

Now, do you think that has happened yet? No, it has not. It certainly has not happened to the nation of Israel because Israel as a nation has not accepted Jesus Christ as Messiah. And you cannot have a new heart unless you come to God through Jesus Christ, the only mediator. As a matter of fact, I think when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, and Jesus made the statement that one must be born of water and spirit, He probably had this Old Testament text in mind, reminding us that way back in the Old Testament God was in the business of changing people and changing their hearts. But Israel as a nation has not yet experienced that.

Now it is in that context that we turn to Ezekiel 38. That’s where we are going to concentrate our study today. Ezekiel speaks of a great invasion in the land of Israel, and what I’d like to do is to tell you who the allies are before we talk about who it is that is spearheading this entry into the land.

You’ll notice he lists five different nations beginning in Ezekiel 38:5, all of whom participate in this great military campaign. Who are they? Number one, Persia. Who is Persia? Persia in 1939, I believe it was, was renamed Iran. Iran is going to participate in coming up against Israel. Now, you know that the people of Iran are not necessarily in line with what the government of Iran is going to do. I mention that because we must always separate the people from the official policy of their government.

Here at The Moody Church we have many people from Iran. We have an Iranian ministry, and among those folks who meet together are many fine Christians, and many others who are thinking about Christianity. But as far as the official policy of the country is concerned, the day will come when Iran will join in this great desire to exploit the land of Israel.

Let’s go on. Number two, it says Ethiopia. When we think of Ethiopia, we think of the Sudan. Again, another country where the Christians are being persecuted and where there is Islamic fundamentalism on the rise.

We think then also of Put. What in the world is Put? Well, if we took out the time to look up all these names we’d discover that most of them occur in Genesis 10, and we would learn that Put is actually ancient Libya. Put was the third son of Ham, and if you trace the table of nations, you discover it was Libya, and it may include other areas and other countries, and we all remember, do we not, Muammar Gaddafi?

The next one is Gomer. This is more difficult to identify—Ezekiel 28:6. What is Gomer? Ancient maps of Germany, the southern part of Germany at least was called Gomer. And it may be Southern Germany. It also may be parts of Turkey. They are going to be involved in this campaign against Israel.

Then Togarmah. You’ll see here. It is in Ezekiel 38:6, “[It will come] from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you.” Togarmah, according to the ancients, is Eastern Turkey. We don’t know exactly where the border ends, but these are the nations that are going to come together, unite together, and they are going to march into the land of Israel.

But the sixty-four-dollar question, and an even more important question, is who is going to be the leader of this invasion? And for that, now we go back to Ezekiel 38:2. “Son of man (God is speaking through Ezekiel), set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog.”

What in the world is Gog and Magog? Once again, if we were to look at the table of nations in the book of Genesis, we’d discover that we are not totally without a clue as to who this is because in that listing we would discover that Magog and Gog are also now sons of Japheth.

Now I need to pause here just for a moment. Do you remember Noah? He had three sons. Shem, which turned out to be the Jewish people. Ham, whose descendants went primarily into Africa—and by the way, the sons of Ham were not cursed. There was one son of Ham that was cursed whose name was Canaan, and that curse was fulfilled in the extermination of the Canaanites under Joshua. But African Americans are not under the curse as some people have misinterpreted the Scriptures to say.

And then you had Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who are the Europeans. So, we can see so far that the people who are going to be involved are the sons of Ham. We’ve looked at some of those, but also the sons of Japheth. That’s who Magog and Gog are. According to Josephus these are the people that migrated and settled down near the Black Sea in the area of what we call Russia today. And then it goes on to identify these. It says Meshach, and that happens to be the fifth son of Jephthah and Tubal, who is the sixth son of Japheth.

Now all that to simply say this. There is only really one country that can fulfill this requirement, and that is Russia. I mention that not only because of the identification that we’ve made, and some people interpret the word Rosh. Now if you have an NIV, it will translate that word chief prince, but other scholars believe that it refers to a territory, and it is the word from which we get the word Russia. There are several reasons why Russia, I believe, is going to be the one who will lead this particular invasion.

First of all because three times in this passage it talks about a nation from the remotest part of the north. Notice Ezekiel 38:6, Gomer with all of its troops, then it talks about Togarmah, “from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes.” You’ll notice again the same expression occurs in Ezekiel 38:15, “You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you.” Then we notice in Ezekiel 39:2, speaking of the same event, giving more details, “And I will turn you about (God says) and drive you forward, and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel.”

You say, “Well, how do we know that this hasn’t already happened?” Well, there are two reasons. First, because it says this is going to happen in the latter days. That’s what my translation says. I’m reading from the New American Standard Version. “In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war” (Ezekiel 38:8). I notice the NIV translates it future years, but either way this is something Ezekiel was prophesying. It was in the distant future. But there’s another reason, and that is these events, as we shall see, simply have not yet happened. Remarkable events.

Why do we believe that it is Russia? First of all because, as I mentioned, the text says that it’s going to come from the remotest part of the north. Now all that you need to do is to get a globe, and then look at the land of Israel, and run your finger along the globe to the Arctic Circle, and you will go directly over Moscow. There seems to be no other country that fits this description.

There’s another reason also. Because it was the Soviet Union which now, of course, has broken apart, with Russia giving the lead, that was the most systematic nation in the world that promoted atheism and the destruction of everything religious. And as you think about all that the Russian people have endured and all of the persecutions, and all of the people that have been put to death, most assuredly in the past at least Russia represented the most godless nation on the face of the earth. Now, of course, that isn’t true today and that’s why I emphasize again that we must always distinguish between the government and its own people.

My wife and I have been to Russia and it is there that we have met some of the most wonderful, sensitive, faithful Christians on the face of the earth. And our own women’s ministry is actually developing a relationship with another women’s ministry in Russia and in Moscow so that there might be able to be communion, and so we can help them in what they are trying to do there. But nonetheless it appears to me that Russia will be the lead invader.

Now, enough of that. The question is what’s going to happen? The best thing we can do here is pick it up at Ezekiel 38:10–12, “Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’ to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.” That’s an interesting phrase because ancient maps had Jerusalem as the center of the world, and I guess it is because here Israel, Jerusalem, is spoken of as the center of the world.

And what happens? Ezekiel 38:15–16, “You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”

Now first of all, we are struck by the fact that these ancient methods of warfare are a problem to us. You say, “Well, surely this has happened because Russia wouldn’t be using horses today and shields.” Well, there are two ways to interpret this. One is symbolically. After all, when Ezekiel received this vision from God, he had to have a way to communicate it to his people. He had to be able to speak in terms that the people of those days could understand. He could hardly be expected to talk about tanks, and laser weapons, and chemical warfare so he speaks in the language of the ancients. And maybe that’s the way we should interpret it.

Other people have looked at it and said, “Well, we need to understand that because peace will have been in the land—as we shall see in a moment—that maybe these conventional methods of warfare might work, and maybe there’s a reason why Russia today, and its army, still has a cavalry. Maybe there’s the possibility that they will revert back to some of the ancient methods of warfare, particularly if the peace movement gains some strength and weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed.” We’re not sure.

Here is what we need to know. The reason these nations gang together on Israel is for two different reasons. Number one, Israel is not expecting an invasion. It says in Ezekiel 38:11, “I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates.” Israel will be in a period of peace.

Well, if you know anything about Israel today, you know it is not a country of peace. It is armed. When you go into the Tel Aviv airport there you see guards. When you go outside there are guards. There are checkpoints along the road. Israel today is in a state of readiness, high alert all the time, not knowing when the next attack will come. So, it can’t refer to this period of time.

What would the period of time be that Israel would have so much peace that its villages would be unarmed and people would be able to march in? Well, I’m not being dogmatic on this, but just think about it. You remember I told you how Antichrist is going to sign a peace treaty with Israel? What if he has so much power as that great European leader? What if he can sign a peace deal, he can bring all of the Arab nations under his authority, and he can believe that he will have achieved peace. He will guarantee the security of Israel, so Israel will not have to worry about the problem of war, and it can take all of its resources that are being used for defense today and take that money and invest it in its economy. And that might mean Israel would then be in a position to gain a tremendous amount of power, a tremendous amount of wealth, and that also now would be a reason why these nations gang together.

Why? Because the text says in Ezekiel 38:12 “To seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places.” Israel, as we know in the Dead Sea itself it is said that there are trillions of dollars’ worth of minerals. And of course, the Arab nations that are involved in this want to exterminate Israel anyway, so they come up against Israel.

Well, the question though is what happens? This is one of the reasons why we know this has never, never happened in history because if you do not know what happens, you’re going to be shocked and surprised because God is personally going to defend His people. The Bible tells us exactly how He’s going to do it.

You’ll notice it says in Ezekiel 38:18–23, “But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord God, (God is speaking) my wrath will be roused in my anger. For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the people who are on the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord God. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

It takes your breath away. Earthquakes, hail, pestilence, fire, brimstone. God is going to rain on all of these armies and destroy them. In fact, the destruction is going to be so bad that we read in the next chapter it is going to take Israel seven months to clean up and to bury all the dead people. Can you imagine the stench? It says in Ezekiel 39:11, “On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the sea.” That means they are going to take them on the other side of the Jordan River into what today is known as the land of Moab, and it will block off the passersby. They will bury Gog there with all of his multitude and they will call it the Valley of Hamon-gog, which is hoards of the dead. “For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land” (Ezekiel 39:11). And that’s it; they are gone.

Now, the question is, what does that do to world events? Put yourself in the seat of Antichrist, if our scenario is right. He’s sitting in Europe. He has a peace treaty to keep all of the Arab nations and those who are against Israel and Russia in line. Suddenly God comes and destroys all of those armies. Well, that might the proper time when he really does say to himself, “I am God.” Remember how last time I told you how he will enter into the temple of God and proclaim himself to be God. It could well be that these events should be reversed in order. What happens is he gains so much supremacy because he does not have the pressure any more of these nations. He thinks he can take over the control of the world, and he goes to Jerusalem and proclaims himself to be God. What a story.

What I’d like to do today is to give you three reminders of God’s attributes that kind of just jump out at us from this passage of Scripture.

First of all, we see the sovereignty of God. God says to Russia if our identification is correct, “I am going to pull you out of the north, and I am going to judge you.” As a matter of fact, it says in Ezekiel 38:4, “And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords.” “I’m going to drag you out of the north and I’m going to drag you to Israel to destroy you.” Boy, if that isn’t God being sovereign, what is?

I want you to know, that does not get these people off the hook because if you interviewed these people, they wouldn’t say, “Well, we’re doing this because God ordained it and we feel the pressure of a divine decree.” No, they’re doing it just because they want to do it. They hate Israel. They want Israel’s wealth. They’re doing what they want to do, but God says, “Back behind your decision it my desire to judge you.” God is sovereign.

Now, I need to bring this home to where we live. If God is sovereign among the nations, don’t you think He is sovereign in your life too? Is there any really good reason why you should resist God’s sovereignty, and not bow to His authority, and to simply give your life to Him and say, “God, whatever it is that you desire I submit to you?” The Book of James tell us, “Dearly beloved, submit yourselves to God,” because nations ultimately cannot control their destiny, and you can’t control yours either.

If you buy a ticket on Amtrak, you say to yourself, “I’m going to get a good night’s sleep,” and you are in the sleeper car, and boom, suddenly you arrive in eternity, and don’t even know what happened to you. You cannot control your destiny. And therefore, submission to God is the most logical, the most reasonable, the most decent decision you can ever make because God is God and we aren’t.

There’s a second attribute that I want to emphasize and that is God’s terror. You’ll notice the Lord says, regarding Russia—again assuming that’s our identification—He says in Ezekiel 38:3, “Behold, I am against you, O Gog.” How would you like to be against God? Why is this nation the one that God singles out and says, “I’m against you?” God is for the nations, isn’t He?

Well, we’ve talked about its atheism. We’ve talked about its destructive policy, its persecution of Christians, its hatred of the Jews, and God says, “I’m going to judge you.” What does He do? He sends earthquakes, and pestilence, and hailstones, and fire out of heaven, and He destroys them, and consumes them until they are all hundreds of thousands of them lying dead in the hills of Israel, the Bible says. Doesn’t that frighten you a little bit? The fact that God says, “It is this way that I will be glorified.”

Right after all of this judgment the Lord says, “So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 38:23). I mean in another text He says, “And they will glorify me.” Do you realize that God is glorified through His judgment? I’ll tell you we can’t make up conceptions of God to fit our own image and our desires.

The other day I picked up a book. I did not buy it. I would not want to invest even ten dollars in a book like this. It was entitled Conversations with God, which I think is on the best-seller list. I’ll tell you there’s more nonsense per square inch on the pages of that book than you can find anywhere. I cannot even believe it, because this man is talking with God, and God is talking back to him, and God is just giving him all this nonsense the man wants to hear. Everything, every desire of your heart you wish God would do and be, that’s what this man has. “God is not a God of judgment. He’s a God of tolerance. He’s a God of acceptance. He’s a God who accepts anybody. He’s a God who is in favor of abortion. He’s a God who’s in favor of this and that, and every sexual lifestyle imaginable.” Folks, it’s all made up.

God is a God of terror. The Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. I mean can you imagine entering eternity without the protection of Jesus Christ in His righteousness and suddenly being on your own? And then there are those who say, “Well, you know, I want to stand on my own record in the presence of God.” You get blown away. You get incinerated except that you would remain conscious forever, and ever, and ever. God is a God of terror. That’s a second attribute.

But there’s a third, too, that God is a God of mercy. And we need to be able to say both. The Apostle Paul talked about both the goodness and the severity of God. God is severe—we just noticed it. But He’s also good. He’s also merciful.

You say, “Well, where is mercy in this passage?” Look at the way He is protecting Israel. He could just let those nations go in, and wipe the place clean, and blow all of those Jews right off the map, and simply obliterate the nation, and say, “Let them have it, and let them tear it apart, and let them kill every single living Jewish person.” God could have done that, but doesn’t. He protects them. He protects them even though at this time they are not yet believing in Him as Messiah. But He knows that they have to, because the Bible predicts that a day is coming when all Israel, all those Israelites, are going to be saved. We’re going to talk about that in the next message. God is saying, “In mercy I am sparing you to give you an opportunity to trust me.” And doesn’t He do that in your life?

Some of you are here today and you could have died in a hundred different ways. All of us could have died in a hundred different ways. Death is so creative. It comes in so many different ways, so many unexpected ways—odd diseases, freak accidents, heart attacks. God spared you and brought you here today so you might know that the Bible says His goodness and His patience leads you to repentance. So, I extend to you today the mercy of God.

When I was gone this week, I prepared four new messages on the doctrine of God, which I hope to give here sometime in the months ahead. I did some reading, and I was reading Life Magazine which had a cover story on God. It was several issues, maybe even several years ago. And I was reading about one man who said that his conception of God was changing. He said when he was in New York, he sinned so much that he knew after he had lived in New York that God would never possibly accept him. So, he left the church, and he left God, because God was so mad at him anyway, there was no use even trying to deal with him.

Maybe there is somebody listening to this message today who feels that way. You know what? If the truth were really known, if secrets were revealed, there may be somebody here who has committed some mighty big crimes. You’ve done some terrible things that you’ve been covering up. In fact, you’re scared to death lest you someday be found out. And you say, “How can God accept me? Look at what I’ve done.”

I want you to know today the God who is sovereign and the God of terror is also the God of mercy. And you can draw near through the blood of Christ. You can come to Him based on what He has done for you and be accepted even as Jesus is accepted because Jesus died in your place. God’s mercy is extended to you in the fact that you are here today or you are listening to this message on the radio or cassette tape. God’s mercy is revealed through Jesus Christ.

I still think the best illustration of the gospel is the one that I like to use from time to time, but it’s so good. Remember the man who was speeding in California, and he couldn’t pay his ticket? He was standing before the judge, and the judge said, “Give me a hundred dollars.” And the man did not have a hundred dollars, but the judge felt pity for this poor guy. So, he stood up behind the bench, took off his robe, hung it up, walked down the steps, came and stood by the defendant. The judge takes out his own wallet, takes out a hundred dollars from the wallet, lays it on the table, goes back, puts on his robe, takes the hundred dollars, and says to the man, “Thank you. You are acquitted. Your debt is paid.” That’s the gospel.

The gospel is that God meets God’s requirements for us. What do we do? We bring our sin. We bring our helplessness. We bring our own frailties. We bring all that and He supplies everything that He Himself demands. And He is merciful. And He is forgiving.

Israel will someday accept Jesus as Messiah. Not every last individual Israelite, but as a nation they will accept Christ as Messiah. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t God forgiving? And He is going to keep them alive and preserve the nation until they do that. And that is His mercy and His grace. And He has brought some of you here so He can do that today by His power and love.

Let’s pray.

Our Father, as we think about the future we are reminded of the fact that it is definitely in your hands. It’s not in our hands. Our future isn’t nor the nations of the world in their own hands, but they are in yours. And we pray today, Father, that even though we don’t understand when this will happen, we want to thank you that it is a revelation of your character and your mercy.

We pray for those who have never accepted Christ as Savior today. We pray that you will cause them to believe and be saved. Help them to understand that if they accept you, that you, O Lord, will forgive them and change them and make them a member of your family forever. Do that, Lord, we ask.

And now before I close this prayer what is it that you need to say to the Lord? If you’ve never trusted Him as Savior, you can say, “Jesus, I am a sinner. Save me. I accept your sacrifice for myself.” You tell Him that. If you are a believer and there are parts of your life that are not under His authority, just give them up. Don’t fight God.

Do in us today, O Lord, all that we desire. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Editor’s Note: In this transcript, the verbatim intelligent transcription process simplifies and enhances spoken content by eliminating redundant words, unnecessary sounds, fixing grammar errors, and clarifying meaning while preserving the author's original intent. All Scripture quotes are according to the biblical text, not as they were originally spoken.