Morning Light – Ezekiel 39
Today: [Ezekiel 39] Will Russia Be Destroyed? In chapter 39 of Ezekiel a nation described as “Tubal, Meshech, and Ros” will be utterly destroyed by a supernatural intervention by the hand of God Himself. The scenario by which this comes to pass is haunting familiar to us in terms of the geo-political tensions in the earth today, causing us to pause and consider just how soon onrushing change of apocalyptic proportions may be right before us.
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[Eze 39:1-29 KJV] 1 Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I [am] against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 2 And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: 3 And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. 4 Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that [is] with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and [to] the beasts of the field to be devoured. 5 Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD. 6 And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I [am] the LORD. 7 So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not [let them] pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. 8 Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this [is] the day whereof I have spoken. 9 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years: 10 So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down [any] out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD. 11 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the [noses] of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call [it] The valley of Hamongog. 12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. 13 Yea, all the people of the land shall bury [them]; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD. 14 And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. 15 And the passengers [that] pass through the land, when [any] seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamongog. 16 And also the name of the city [shall be] Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
In chapter, the prophecy against Gog is continued with a sharp denunciation and announcement of God’s opposition against this mysterious nation. The land mass understood to be Gog however includes the nation states of the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. During the Cold War and the years of the Soviet domination of this area, prophecy teachers unswervingly applied these verses and the warnings in them against the Soviet empire specifically and Communism generally. Meshech was and by many still is considered to be the etymological equivalent of the city of Moscow, the Russian capital. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament adds to Meshech and Tubal the prince / nation of “Ros” which comes very close to sealing the identification of God as the Russian Federation and amalgamated former Soviet Bloc nations.
In chapter 38 we see a prophesied destruction of a coalition of nations, led by Gog (understood to be the Russian Federation) that will be turned back not by other Western nations or the United States, but by a cataclysmic earthquake that will so confuse these nations allied against Israel that they will turn and begin firing upon each other. Where is the United States in all of this? It is true that any serious student of Bible Prophecy will remark that the US is ominously absent at worst or figuring in very minimally at best in almost all major prophetic scenarios for the end times. Ez. 38:13 mentions the impotent Sheba and Dedan blandly questioning Gog when her assault of Israel comes, inquiring into what Gog’s intention might be but ultimately doing nothing. This unfortunately very accurately describes the foreign policy of the US for the last few decades – a facile, impotent power seemingly incapable of fulfilling her role as a global peacekeeper.
In verse 2 we see the great earthquake’s aftermath as leaving only 1/6th of this great northern army intact, with the remainder being food for the ravens and the vultures. You will also see in verse 3 that the arrows of this northern alliance of nations fall harmlessly to the ground. This speaks directly to the missile capability of what may be an unleashed nuclear attack at the last minute, when these nations, led by Russia are brought to ruin on the battlefield. God will act to render them inert and they will fall innocuously to the earth. In the aftermath the cities of Israel go out in a mopping up operation that takes 7 years to dispose of all the weaponry for all the immensity of the northern army that is brought to nothing by the sovereign hand of God.
The 7 year’s period is tantalizingly reminiscent of the commonly held belief that there will be a 7 year period of tribulation, some believe that will commence immediately after the catching away of the Bride of Christ in the rapture as referenced in 1 Thess. 4:
[1Th 4:16-17 KJV] 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Could this be? Will the event referenced in this verse take place at the same moment that this mighty invasion takes place and is subsequently turned back by the hand of God through a tremendous earthquake and the resulting self-destruction of theses allied northern forces. There are many, many opinions about this – and each side of the debate utterly scorns and heaps contempt upon the other. For this reason, most reasonable, and peaceful minded believers just want to ignore it all lest they come under the askance and contemptable scrutiny of these dogmatic pugilists who love nothing other than a doctrinal fight. We must take back from these sneering, immature self-appointed authorities the scope of scripture that addresses the end times and just look at them with respect and prayerfulness knowing unquestionably we may in fact be living in monumental times beyond anything we might realize.
17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, [even] a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. 18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. 19 And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD. 21 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. 22 So the house of Israel shall know that I [am] the LORD their God from that day and forward. 23 And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. 24 According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them. 25 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; 26 After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made [them] afraid. 27 When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; 28 Then shall they know that I [am] the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. 29 Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.
In verse 17 we see the aftermath in human terms of what verses 1-16 describe in terms of the instruments of war and their destruction. The carrion eaters shall be gorged on the 5/6th of the northern army destroyed by God and by each other until they are drunken with blood. This great defeat of these pagan, godless men and their nations armies is God (v. 21) getting glory for himself among the heathen by the judgment that he has executed. This is sobering when we realize that in this assembled army there may be born again soldiers, mustered to the fight who have no choice but to obey their masters or forfeit their lives. Perhaps as some suggest they will be raptured away, we cannot say with certainty but it is uncomely to rejoice over the carnage, without pausing to think that in their midst are many, many who have heard the gospel and are now victims of the turn of historical and prophetic events of apocalyptic proportions.
Whatever the vagaries in terms of human costs, verse 22 says that this victory will be so great that the entire nation of Israel and her citizens will never again be tempted to think of it in terms of anything else other than absolute, divine, supernatural deliverance from on high by the hand of God and none other. Likewise, the heathen nations, the godless, totalitarian nations that joined hand in hand against God’s people will know beyond any question that something beyond human agency has destroyed them and their mighty combined forces.
Verse 26 states that from this point the captivity of Jacob, her dispersal among the nations, her persecution under despots of every age from king Zedekiah till this future time will being to draw down and be brought to a close as God Himself prepares to crown His own son as the regent and king, physically on the earth, ruling from Jerusalem for a 1000 years.
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