man good morning everyone it's good to be up here beautiful day outside and we're having
a prophecy conference right now down in phoenix and i've been part of that over the last three
days so this morning i'm bringing a little bit of the prophecy conference up to you here
in pruska valley so i'm preaching this morning on the subject of ezekiel i'm sorry
let me back up bible prophecy in ezekiel end times bible prophecy in ezekiel
is the title of sermon we're going to go back to ezekiel and get some end times bible prophecy
from that book but first let's start out here in revelation chapter 20 and i want to point out
a few things here the bible says in verse number seven and when the thousand years are
expired satan shall be loosed out of his prison and shall go out to deceive the nations
which are in the four quarters of the earth gog and magog to gather them together to battle
the number of whom is as the sand of the sea and they went up on the breadth of the earth
and compass the camp of the saints about and fire came down from god out of heaven
and devoured them and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone
where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and
ever so in this scripture we see mention of the millennial reign of christ the believers living
and reigning with christ for a thousand years and during that time the world's going to be
a wonderful place to live in there's going to be peace on earth lions are going to eat straw
they're not even going to attack a human being the bible says during that time a little child
will be able to just play with with a snake out in the wild and not have to be worried about
anything so that's going to be a beautiful perfect time on this earth but there are going
to be a lot of people at the end of that that are not satisfied with that you know no
matter how good things are certain wicked people they're just never going to be happy they're
never going to be satisfied so at the end of that thousand years of jesus christ ruling and
reigning on this earth there is going to be a group of people that rebel against jesus christ
and they want to come up against him and that's what the bible says happens in verse
seven after that thousand years is over the devil is released out of hell because he's been
locked in hell for that thousand years which is part of why the earth is such a great place
during that time because the devil's not deceiving anyone but after that thousand years are expired
the devil's loosed out of his prison and he goes out to deceive the nations which are
in the four quarters of the earth and then the bible just throws in these three words that
are a little bit random just says gog and magog and then it says that he's going to gather
them together to battle the number of whom is as the sand of the sea and they went up on the
breadth of the earth and compass the camp of the saints about and the beloved city and fire came
down from god out of heaven and devoured them so all these people come and they gather against
jesus christ and they gather against the saints and they want to overthrow this thousand year
reign of christ and they don't even get to do battle because fire ends up raining from heaven
and just destroying them all and then we get into the great white throne the new heaven and the new
earth okay with that in mind let's go back to the book of ezekiel there's not a lot of detail
in that story that that crammed a lot of events just into a couple of verses almost no
detail in fact is given in revelation 20 go back to ezekiel 37 it pretty much just tells us
that there's going to be a thousand year reign of christ after that people are going to rebel
and god's going to send fire and destroy them really just a quick couple of verses to describe
these big events but remember those three little words that were just kind of plugged in there
gog and magog well what that is is a clue to you to go back to the book of ezekiel to
get more detail about that since he only gave it a couple of verses because there's only one
other place in the whole bible that mentions gog and magog and that's back in ezekiel chapter 38
so that's a signal to us when we're reading revelation 20 that if we want more detail about
the millennium if we want more detail about gog and magog and this great battle to go back to
the book of ezekiel now ezekiel is a pretty tough book to a lot of people it's got a lot
of really strong meat of the word a lot of really deep things in it it's a lot harder to
read than the book of revelation but i think as you see this morning if we look at this we
can make sense of it and it's going to be pretty clear to you by the time i'm done
now ezekiel chapter 37 is that famous chapter about the dry bones who knows that song
them bones and bones and dry bones you heard that song before the leg bones connected to the
foot all right that comes from this chapter actually believe it or not because ezekiel is
taken to this valley of dry bones and there are just all these bones and i mean these people
have been dead a long time right he's not seeing even just bodies i mean he just sees
very he says these bones are very dry now if you know anything about bones they have inside
them bone marrow right so if you break open a bone it's not dry on the inside there's
actually moisture there but as a bone would get very very old that's all just going to completely
dry out right so he's taken to a valley where he sees people that have been dead for a long time
and he's asked the question son of man can these bones live and he says you know thou knowest
i don't i don't know right well of course they do live they end up the bones start
connecting to one another imagine what that would be like to see all these bones just start
connecting and they just start building skeletons and then all of a sudden sinews come on them and
flesh comes on them and they become living people once again a great army of human beings
so in verse 11 of chapter 37 god starts to interpret what this means it says in verse 11
then he said unto me son of man these bones are the whole house of israel
behold they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost we're cut off for our parts therefore
prophesy and say unto them thus saith the lord god behold oh my people i'll open up your graves
and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of israel and ye
shall know that i am the lord when i have opened your graves oh my people and brought you up
out of your graves and shall put my spirit in you and ye shall live and i will place you in
your own land then shall you know that i the lord have spoken it and performed it saith the
lord so this is pointing us to end times bible prophecy because there's going to be a great
resurrection in the end times right of all those who were saved who died and their bodies
were buried their souls went to heaven but their bodies have been laying in the earth for a very
long time just like those dry bones were very dry they've been dead a long time so what's going
to happen is that when jesus christ comes in the clouds and the trumpet sounds at the rapture
the bible says that dead in christ shall rise first now a lot of times when people see that
they think to themselves oh that's just the new testament saints you know that's just the
people that were saved after the time of christ but there were a lot of people that were saved
before the time of christ right people throughout the old testament and the great men of the old
testament like abraham isaac and jacob they called upon the name of the lord they were saved
so when are they going to be resurrected some people have a strange belief that they've
already been resurrected but of course that isn't true because if you remember in acts chapter
two when peter's preaching he said that david's sepulcher remains unto us until this day david
is not ascended into the heavens you know his body is in the grave so if his body was still
in the grave in acts two guess what it's still in the grave right now as well but when
that trumpet sounds and the dead in christ rise first that's when david's body is going to be
resurrected you see even the old testament saints were still in christ even though jesus had
not come because the bible says that christ is the lamb of god slain from the foundation of the
world okay so they were still in christ they looked forward to the cross we look back on the
cross but they were still saved by the blood of jesus that's the only way anybody could ever
be saved is through the blood of jesus christ it's not possible for the blood of bulls and
goats to take away sins it's the blood of christ that saves us so at that event of the rapture
all of the dead saints of all ages are going to be resurrected they're going to come back to life
right they're going to be resurrected brought back to life and when it comes to the nation
of israel they are going to be placed in their own land and they're going to live
in that promised land of israel and they're going to reign with christ there for a thousand years
say how do you know that well jesus told his 12 apostles he said that in the regeneration which
is another word for the resurrection or or coming back to life after the rapture he said
in the regeneration the 12 apostles would sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of israel
so that means the 12 tribes of israel from the old testament are going to come up out
of their graves they're going to be caught up they're going to be in heaven with us for a few
years and then when christ returns at the battle of armageddon and sets up his kingdom the children
of israel are going to live in the promised land they're going to live in israel and they're
going to be judged by the 12 apostles right one apostle will judge each tribe does everybody
understand so far so let's keep going here it says in verse number 15 the word of the
lord came again unto me saying moreover thou son of man take the one stick and write upon it for
judah and for the children of israel his companions then take another stick and write upon
it for joseph the stick of ephraim and for all the house of israel his companions and join
them one to another into one stick and they shall become one in thy hand now this is a miracle
okay and this is probably a miracle that you've never heard of because it's kind of an obscure
miracle it's not as dramatic as jesus walking on the water but he takes this stick and he
writes judah on one stick and he takes another stick and he writes israel on it or ephraim
talking about the northern kingdom and he takes these two sticks in front of all israel right
and he basically puts these two sticks together and they just become one stick in his hand now
that's that's a miracle obviously now some people probably were skeptical and said hey this
is a magic trick or whatever but we know this was a miracle god miraculously caused two sticks
to just merge into one stick and the thing that he was teaching is that one day the northern
kingdom of israel and the southern kingdom of judah are going to be one nation again because in
the old testament after king solomon they split into two kingdoms with jeroboam and riabom
and they were separate all the time thereafter they were totally separate but god is saying
that when they come up out of the graves in the end times and when he brings them up out of their
graves and puts them in the land they're going to be one nation again all 12 tribes are going
to be unified into one country with the 12 apostles reigning over them it says in verse
number 20 and the sticks were on thou rightest shall be in thine hand before their eyes
and say unto them thus saith the lord god behold i will take the children of israel
from among the heathen whither they be gone and will gather them on every side and bring
them into their own land verse 22 and i will make them one nation in the land upon the
mountains of israel and one king shall be king to them all they shall be no more two nations
neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms at all anymore at all neither shall they defile
themselves anymore with their idols nor with their detestable things nor with their any of
their transgressions but i will save them out of all their dwelling places wherein they have
sinned and will cleanse them so shall they be my people and i will be their god and
david my servant shall be king over them and they all shall have one shepherd and they shall
also walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them now this is pretty clear
when it says that david is going to rule over them and there's going to be one shepherd
we're talking about jesus because jesus is the son of david jesus will sit on the throne of
david he's the good shepherd of psalm 23 he's that one shepherd that's going to rule over
them and the bible says that the israelites are going to walk in his judgments they're
going to observe his statutes and do them verse 25 they shall dwell in the land that i've
given unto jacob my servant wherein your fathers have dwelt and they shall dwell therein even
they and their children and their children's children forever and my servant david shall be
their prince forever i'll make a covenant of peace with them etc and then he says in verse 27
my tabernacle also shall be with them meaning he's saying i'm physically even going to
be there with them why because the lord jesus christ is god in the flesh and he will be
their god and they shall be his people now here's what's funny about this as we just open our
bibles and we just go through it verse by verse this morning it makes perfect sense to us
i mean it's just it's just pretty easy to understand this chapter dead bodies come out of
the graves they go dwell in the land jesus christ rules over them it's pretty easy to
compare this with revelation and compare this with what jesus taught in the four gospels and to see
that in the millennial reign of christ jesus is going to reign over israel and he's going to have
the 12 apostles judging the 12 tribes and it's going to be great there's going to be no
idolatry none of the perversions that they got mixed up in the old testament but what's funny
is that what i just explained to you what i just taught you this is not what the typical
teaching of ezekiel 37 you know those that believe in a pre-tribulation rapture those that
are into zionism and john hagee and and the tv preachers and the pretty much the whole bible
prophecy section at the christian bookstore what they're going to teach is that this is all about
1948 when when israel went back to the land you know and they got their country in 1948
here's what doesn't make sense about that okay did they come out of the graves in 1948 did
they come well you say well it's just figurative okay well then let me ask you this did jesus
start ruling over them in 1948 did they have david as their king i mean is is benjamin netanyahu
today is he david you know have any of these prime ministers or presidents that they've had
over there in that nation of israel been anything like david do they believe in jesus do
they have that one shepherd are they following the judgments of god are they following the laws
of god no in fact the current nation of israel does not have christ reigning does not have anyone
anything like david reigning and they're not following the judgments of god they don't believe
in jesus christ they don't even follow their old testament and in fact tel Aviv is one of
the most wicked cities in the world it's known for perversion and wickedness it's known for
debauchery it's known as a party city for sodomites to go to to party there it's a very
wicked place so it's pretty silly to say oh yeah you know that's that's 1948 you know
when the israel became one nation wrong what this is clearly talking about is in the millennium
you got to wait a little longer folks sorry it's not happening today now the reason that's
important is because when we come out of chapter 37 we go right into the subject of
gog and magog right because when we get into chapter 38 and the word of the lord came unto me
saying son of man set thy face against gog the land of magog the chief prince of misek and
tubal and prophesy against him so according to what we saw in revelation what was the timeline
of events in revelation we had the thousand year reign of christ then we had the battle of gog and
magog then we had the great white throne and the new heaven and the new earth well in israel
we have the exact same timeline right because israel 37 is clearly about the millennium
if we actually follow what it says about jesus reigning over them it goes straight from the
millennium into gog and magog perfect right but if we're going to put our our pre-trib glasses
on or our zionist glasses or if we're going to go down to the christian bookstore and see
what the tv preachers and the televangelists have to say about this passage here's what
they're going to say oh well gog and magog you know actually that takes place
even before the rapture even before the tribulation and in fact they'll look at
current events right now in 2017 and they'll say you know gog is germany or magog is russia
and that you know they'll try to match it up with current events they literally think that
this battle of gog and magog is about to happen that we're lining up for it right now
in fact the the movie left behind which is a pretty popular movie put out by kirk cameron
and then a while back and then it was and then it was remade into a hollywood style movie with
what's that guy's name nicholas cage you know they gave it a full hollywood treatment
if you go back to that original left behind movie with kirk cameron you know what the movie
starts with while the credits are still rolling gog and magog just the battle of god now is
that what the bible said the bible said that's after the thousand year reign of christ but it
left behind gog and magar is the first order of business why because if you're going to make
chapter 37 be about 1948 well then all of a sudden you got to move everything up
you know we got to move everything up and okay this is gog and magog now and it makes zero
sense all right now i'm going to show you a little bit about the battle of gog and magog
from ezekiel 38 and and then you be the judge whether this is something that's about to happen
right now or whether this is something that like revelation said is going to happen after
the millennium look what it says in verse three and say thus saith the lord gob behold i'm against
thee oh gog the chief prince of me shek and tubal i'll turn thee back and put hooks into
thy jaws and i will bring thee forth and all thine army horses and horsemen all of them
clothed with all sorts of armor even a great company with bucklers and shields all of them
handling swords persia ethiopia and libya with them all of them with shield and helmet gomer
and all his bands the house of tagarma of the north quarters with all his bands and many
people with thee be thou prepared and prepare for thyself and all thy company that are
assembled unto thee and be thou a guard unto them now first of all when we see this list
of nations that are being assembled here this ties in with revelation 20 when he said he's
going to go out in the four quarters of the earth and gather all nations right he's going
to gather these nations against let me just read it i don't want to quote it wrong i'm just going
to quickly turn there in uh revelation 20 to get the exact wording i don't want to butcher
it here it says that he will go out of the four quarters of the earth got to deceive the
nations which are in the four quarters of the earth gog and magog to gather them together
the battle so i'd say he's going into the four quarters of the earth he's going all over the
earth and gathering these nations to the battle that makes sense because if you look
at these nations in ezekiel 38 i mean it's persia it's ethiopia it's libya it's gomer
it's tagarma it's a lot of different places okay that makes sense it fits right but what if
we were to apply this today do you think ethiopia is about ready to make some kind of an attack
on israel right now i mean think about how dumb that is right i mean is ethiopia some kind of a
uh a military power right now that makes no sense i don't see any country uh down around ethiopia
you know ethiopia like uh african type people black people from ethiopia down there i don't see
them waging an attack on israel anytime soon right but that's what these prophecy teachers
all this gog and magog is all setting up right now well you know is ethiopia arming itself for
this you know is libya prepared it doesn't make any sense but it does make sense if it's after
the millennium that just all different diversity of of people are going to be rebelling against
the lord people from persia that's representing people from you know iran or that area africa
just just europe gomer and magog just people from all over the world okay are going to be
coming it says in verse 8 after many days thou shalt be visited in the latter years thou shalt
come into the land that is brought back from the sword and is gathered out of many people
against the mountains of israel which have been altogether waste but it is brought forth
out of the nations and they shall dwell safely all of them thou shalt ascend and come like a
storm thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land thou and all thy bands and many people
with thee thus sayeth the lord god it shall also come to pass that at the same time
things shall come into thy mind and thou shalt think an evil thought and thou shalt say i will
go up to the land of unwalled villages i will go to them that are at rest that dwell
safely all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates now stop and
think about this the bible says here that gog and magog and all these other nations of
libya ethiopia persia gomer togarma all these different nations that are going to come against
israel it says that they're going to think an evil thought in their mind and you know what
that evil thought is going to be we're going to go up there and attack them because it's
just unwalled villages there are no bolts no bars no we're going to just take them by storm
because they're completely unprotected completely unprepared for an attack now let me ask you
this if this is something that's a current event if this is something that's going to happen any
day now if this is something that happens at the beginning of the tribulation or something
that happens around the time of the rapture could it be said of israel today that they're
just unwalled no bars no locks no gate i mean they're just a sitting duck no way but think
about this what if you're in the millennial reign of christ and it's been peace for a thousand
years look if it's been peaceful for the last thousand years you're sleeping with the door
unlocked at night you're you know you're not even going to worry about locking your front
door probably in the millennium because things are going to be so calm and peaceful
and you could see how everybody's guns are are rusting because they don't you know they
don't even need them the bible says they're going to beat their swords into plow shares
they're going to beat their spears into pruning hooks what that represents is taking weapons
and using them for agriculture it'd be like what are we going to do with all these tanks
we don't need these tanks there's no war then they could rig them up to do some kind of a
plowing of a field or something you know what i'm saying like they're going to take all the
technology and think about how much money and technology goes into producing weapons right now
a lot right it's a whole industry the military industrial complex where they're just
building missiles and tanks and airplanes and fighter jets and bombs and they're making
all this equipment right well during the millennium that industry is going to stop
because there's a thousand years of peace so all of that productivity of mankind
all of the brains that go into designing new weapons you know what those are going to go
toward they're going to go toward designing ways to grow food more efficiently and and and
so people are going to take all that energy that they put into building planes and tanks
and missiles and bombs and they're going to be building tractors that are better and and
reapers that are better and planters and just high-tech farming and and and all kinds of
efficient ways so it's going to be a time of great prosperity you say why would anyone want to
rebel against that if it's so prosperous and all this great technology abundance of good food
and everybody's doing you know why is because jesus christ though it's going to have some rules
on the he's not it's not just going to be anything goes it's not going to be a free-for-all
and you know there are people who just hate the lord they hate his rules they don't want to
live a righteous life they want to do wickedly and it's going to be a clean kingdom and they
don't like cleanliness they want to get involved in in debauchery and wickedness and that's
not going to fly during the millennium so it makes perfect sense that we read about jerusalem
being filled with unwalled villages people are at rest verse 11 they dwell safely
dwelling without walls having neither bars nor gates i mean look on a warm night they'll probably
just sleep outside on a warm night right they're not worried about somebody breaking in or
anything because the crime is going to be so low and there hasn't been a war in so long
nobody's been practicing with their guns the guns are all rusted and not working because
nobody cares because it's just they're not learning war anymore the bible says neither
shall they learn war anymore during the millennium because it's just not a thing
so basically when the devil goes out to deceive all these nations in the four quarters
of the earth he's going to put this evil thought into their mind these people are sitting
ducks these people are totally unprotected these people don't even remember how to fight you know
these people are are in an unwalled village no bolt no game you know let's just go and just
wipe them out and let's take over we can win we can do this that's going to be the thought
process that makes perfect sense if it's after the millennium like revelation 20 said
but according to tim lehay left behind tv preachers the the prophecy books at the christian bookstore
it makes zero sense because right now you know if you go to israel there's a giant wall there
who's ever seen a picture of that wall that they have in in jerusalem they have this big
wall that separates them from palestine you know and and there's a giant wall there's barbed
wire watchtowers guys with machine guns i mean israel is filled with checkpoints and soldiers
and machine guns and gates and walls i mean it's not anything like what's being described here
at all so it says that they will uh come upon them and and they want to take their goods
and and steal from them and so forth then it says in verse number 14 therefore son of man
prophesy and say unto god thus saith the lord god in that day when my people of israel dwellest
safely shalt thou not know it and thou shalt come from my place out of the north parts
thou and many people with thee all of them riding upon horses a great company and a mighty
army and thou shalt come up against my people of israel as a cloud to cover the land it
shall be in the latter days and i will bring thee against my land that the heathen may know me
when i shall be sanctified in thee oh god before their eyes thus saith the lord god art thou he of
whom i've spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of israel which prophesied in those
days many years that i would bring thee against them and it shall come to pass at the same time
when god shall come against the land of israel saith the lord god that my fury shall come
up in my face for in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have i spoken surely in that day
there shall be a great shaking in the land of israel that sounds like some kind of an
earthquake right a shaking in the land of israel so that the fishes of the sea
and the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the field and all the creeping things that
creep upon the earth and all the men that are upon the face of the earth shall shake at my
presence and the mountains shall be thrown down and the steep places shall fall and every wall
shall fall to the ground and i will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains
saith the lord god every man's sword shall be against his brother what does that mean every
man's sword shall be against his brother well a lot of times in the old testament when there's
a battle where the children of israel are severely outnumbered and these are times in
the history of the children of israel where they're doing right before the lord and when
they're doing right before the lord he protects them he takes care of them and so when they're
right in the sight of god and some giant enemy comes against them whether it be the army of the
ethiopians at one point whether it be the armies of the philistines or whether it's the
armies of the amorites or the hitites or whatever the heathen nation that comes against
them that to fight against them what god would often do because in their own strength they
were just unable to win that battle what the lord would sometimes do is he would send a spirit
of confusion into the camp of the enemy whether that was the edamites or the mobites or whatever
the enemy he would send a spirit of confusion where they would get confused and start slaughtering
each other right he would confound them and they would now this happens in war what's it called
friendly fire right you know when you accidentally kill a guy that's on your team
well what would happen is he would create a spirit of confusion where the edamites you know
might get mixed up and think that the mobites are the enemy when in reality they're allied against
israel he'd cause just confusion in the ranks where they just start just you know you know
just start slaying whoever's around them they think that's the enemy because they get confused
so that's what god's going to do now in revelation chapter 20 we didn't get this
detail did we in revelation 20 he just said you know these armies came and they surrounded
jerusalem and they surrounded the camp of the saints and then it just said fire came down from
god of heaven and devoured him that was the only detail armies came fire came down destroyed
him well you know don't you want to know a little more about that battle i mean that that's
kind of just too short of a of a statement well that's why he told us hey go back and look
up gog and may god get the details well here's the detail before the fire comes down from
heaven he's going to cause confusion amongst all these nations that have come to fight and
he'll actually cause them to start warring against each other in confusion so it says
i'll call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains saith the lord god every man's
sword shall be against his brother they're going to get confused and start killing their own
allies and then it says verse 22 and i will plead against him with pestilence and with blood
and i will rain upon him and upon his bands and upon the many people that are with him an
overflowing rain and great hailstones fire and brimstone so here's the fire coming down from
god out of heaven but here it's a little more detail that after he causes confusion in their
ranks he's going to rain upon them hailstones and fire and brimstone from heaven right
so we know what hailstones are they're obviously blocks of ice right balls of ice
and they can do a lot of damage you remember how the car dealerships i don't know do they
ever have that here in presgate valley the the hail sale or no i don't think the hail is
even really a thing here is it they get hail here well where i'm from in sacramento
every once in a while you get severe hail and i know places like texas they they get even
more hail and bigger hail but i know that in sacramento the car dealers would run a big
promotional and they'd say hail sale we're going to sell you hail damaged vehicles
so they have little dents so you can get a discount you know if you don't really care
that much how it looks if there's a little bit of a dent or a ding on the hood they'll they'll
sell it to you for a little bit cheaper right it still gets you from point a to point b so
if you're not too prideful and worried about the way it looks you know you could go get the hail
damaged vehicles okay but big hailstones i mean they can put giant dents in cars okay and
severe hail back in exodus and also earlier in the book of revelation
uh it it could kill an animal it could even kill a person i mean if you just had this a
giant block of ice dropped on your head you know let's say it's the size of a softball
of just rock hard ice and that thing just slams you in the head or if you're just getting pummeled
with baseballs of hail i mean that could really beat you up right that could really pelt you so
that's what's going on here they're surrounding the city they think they're going to go up and
they oh these people don't know how to fight they don't have weapons they're not they're
defenseless but then they get there there's confusion they start killing each other and
the next thing you know god starts raining giant hailstones out of heaven we don't know
if they're the size of a of a fist or a baseball or i i what's the biggest hail you've ever heard
of i mean i i've heard of it being what the size of a softball or softball size hail i
don't know the guinness book of world record for largest hail i i would suspect it might even
be bigger than that but that comes down on them and then also fire and brimstone brimstone
be like a sulfur like a like hellfire basically so hail and hellfire comes down on them
and he says i'll be known in the eyes of many nations and they shall know that i'm the lord
when he does that chapter 39 verse 1 says therefore thou son of man prophesy against
gog and say thus saith the lord behold i'm against thee oh gog the chief prince of
ball 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 you say you know what
does that mean he'll leave the sixth part basically he's saying only one sixth of them
are going to stay behind and five six of them are going to go to this battle of their of their
troops and be wiped out when they attack jerusalem he says i'll smite the bow out of thy
left hand verse three and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand let's jump
down to verse six i'll send a fire on magog and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles
and they shall know that i am the lord 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 anymore and the heathen shall know
that i am the lord the holy one of israel now this is super easy to understand so far
people have made this complicated but it's all making sense it's all adding up
here's the part where people get confused this is the part that throws people for a loop
it says in verse eight behold it is come it is done say it the lord this is the day
whereof i've spoken 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 hand staves with the and the spears and they shall burn them with
fire seven years so that they shall take no wood out of the field neither cut down
any of the forests for they shall burn the weapons with fire and they shall rob those
that spoiled them or they shall spoil those that spoiled them and rob those that rob them
say the lord god aha right there people will say well pastor anderson you're wrong because
this can't happen at the end of the millennium because they're going to be burning those
weapons for seven years so if they're going to burn the weapons for seven years
how can they do that after the millennium when we know that right after the millennium
you got the great white throne and you got the new heaven and the new earth
so where's the seven years to burn these weapons and if you look at the prophecy books
they'll all bring this up as like well that's how we know that this happens at the
beginning of things you know not even though the bible taught the opposite
they they they in fact in in tim lahey's book charting the end times he puts it in giant he
has like a giant text the number one thing we should look at when trying to figure out
where to put gog and magog in the prophetic timeline the number one evidence is the the
seven years of burning the weapons i mean that's just that's the number one thing okay now let's
just use our brains for a second here and stop and think about this
if this is happening at the beginning of the tribulation as the televangelist will tell us
if this is happening around the time of the rapture as the left behind movie would show us
let me ask you this is that a time when you would want to be burning all your weapons
when there's major warfare going on and major cataclysm and major upheaval on the earth for
the next seven years i mean why would you just sit there and say well we don't need any firewood
we're just going to burn these wooden weapons and and you know we don't need any
lighter fluid and we don't need any uh oil for the lamps because we've got all this gasoline
and we've got all this you know from these weapons and from these tanks and from these
wooden weapons we'll just burn them i mean look during the during the tribulation there's major
war going on in the earth you're not burning weapons you're loading the weapons you're cleaning
your weapons you're using them that makes no sense makes zero sense not only that but
you know when god's pouring out his wrath on this earth and the whole place is on fire and
god's burning up the trees and the green grass you know think about the looting that's
going to be going on because the bible specifically talks about that while god's pouring out his wrath
that the men on the earth didn't give god the glory who brought all these plagues on them
and it says that they did not repent of their murders they did not repent of their
fornications they did not repent of their thefts okay so think about that so during
god's pouring out his wrath with the seven trumpets and the seven vials the bible
specifically brings up hey people are still fornicating during that time they're still
murdering during that time and they're still committing theft now think about when there's
a natural disaster don't the looters come out and start just throwing a brick through the window
of big five sporting goods and walking out with all the jerseys and the nike shoes and the air
jordans and whatever right don't they go in and throw a brick through best buy and walk in
and they're coming out with dvd players and they're coming out with with uh all the
technology that the flat screen tv i mean wasn't there just a disaster literally a couple
months ago and looters were being busted with flat screen tvs down with this hurricane they
just hit in the the the southern eastern part of the united states and in the caribbean
all kinds of looting can you imagine the looting when the whole place is on fire and all this
cataclysm power outages everywhere i mean the looters are going to be going crazy murderers
are going to be going crazy they're going to be stealing and robbing and killing i mean it's
going to be rough oh but we're just going to be burning all our weapons just we don't need
these weapons well you're going to need your weapons more than ever during that time that
makes no sense okay here's what actually makes sense how about after a thousand years of peace
right thousand year millennial reign of christ there's this one last battle gog and may god
right god just decisively wins the battle by raining fire and brimstone out of heaven
battles over the enemy's been wiped out doesn't it make sense that at that point you'd say like
we well we don't need these weapons we didn't even need them in this battle i mean god defeated
our enemy we didn't even need them god wiped out the enemy let's use them for firewood
let's melt them down and use them for other things so that actually makes perfect sense
but the big sticking point for them is that they have this idea
that immediately when the millennium ends they just immediately you go to the great white throne
and immediately you have the new heaven and the new earth but that's not really what it says
let's let's we'll close on this revelation 20. let's go back to revelation 20 and see that
there's really no evidence of that so the ironic thing is that
the zionist pre-trib tv preacher crowd they think that the burning the weapons for seven years
is the big proof that it happens when they say it happens at the beginning of the tribulation
right around the time of the rapture because they think that the rapture takes place before
the tribulation but ironically this burning the weapons seven months is one of the biggest
proofs why that would be ridiculous because why would you burn your weapons when you but you're
going to need that weapon boy for the next seven years you're going to need all the weapons that
you can get because of all the looting and all the the bad things that are going to be
going on and and remember the second seal in revelation he's going to take peace from the
earth they're going to kill each other you better have a weapon during that time so it makes
no sense i'll show you the answer it's pretty simple it says in verse 9 they went up on the
breadth of the earth encompassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city and fire came
down from god out of heaven and devoured them and the devil that deceived them was cast into
the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented
day and night forever and ever and i saw a great white throne now let me ask you this
does the bible say immediately there was a great white throne the same day there was a great white
throne directly following there's a straight way a non no no it doesn't say any of those things
basically god is not giving us a lot of detail he's only hitting the highlights that's
what it here's the proof he's only hitting the highlights he summed up a thousand years in a
couple verses that they live in reign of christ thousand years he's only hitting the highlights
here he's just telling us hey here's a rough outline you got a thousand year reign of christ
you got gog and magog and then you got the white throne you got new heaven a new earth he's hitting
the highlights you want the details you got to go back to where ezekiel and he gives us that
clue by saying those three words gog and magog oh okay go back and read 37 we'll get some
details about the millennium go back and read 38 and 39 of ezekiel get some details about
gog and magog you see the reality is that we do not go directly from the millennium
to the great white throne and then directly to the new heaven and new earth because of the fact
that when the thousand years are expired what does expired mean it's over right and if we had
some milk that expired it's not going to have a date on it that says november 10th right if
i look at the date and it says november 10th i'm going to say hey this is not expired now
what if it said november 6th it's still not expired right because today is only the fifth
well yeah but i mean it's the fifth it says november 6th so it's expired no it's not expired
because if it says the sixth it doesn't expire until the sixth right so when it's expired that
means the thousand years are over they're over it doesn't mean we're in year 998
we're not in year 999 it means a thousand years have come and gone they've ended they've
expired they're over right so when the thousand years are expired satan's loosed out of his
prison and he shall go out and deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the
earth well let me ask you this is that going to take one day is that going to take a month
no no because first of all he has to go around and deceive all the nations that's going to take
some time he's got to put these evil thoughts into their head okay but then secondly they're
going to have to get the weapons together remember all the swords have been beaten into
plowshares the spears into printing so they're going to have to come up with a battle plan
they're going to have to get organized they're going to have to get their weapons together
they're going to have to create so many weapons i mean they're creating a lot of weapons because
remember they're going to be burning them for seven years as firewood they're going to keep
finding weapons and burning them and reusing them for things recycling okay well that's going
to take some time so we have to understand that there's a time here that goes by so after
the millennium that's when the devil starts deceiving people if i had to guess and obviously
we have no way of knowing this but i would just guess that for the devil to go around and
deceive everybody and to organize this battle if i were to throw a number out i'd say it's probably
gonna take like five years would be my guess but you know who knows maybe it's gonna take
five months but that seems too short you know maybe it could take 10 years maybe it could take
three years maybe take two we don't really know if you think about world war ii you know the
the lead up to world war ii it didn't happen overnight you know it took about five or six
years to build up to world war ii and then world war ii broke out september 1st 1939
but you had a build up for six years world war one you had a couple of decades of buildup
leading up to that wars break up break out after a military buildup that takes place for a
long time think about saddam hussein and the gulf war you know saddam hussein is building up
building up to that building up to that and then he invades kuwait the war breaks out right but
there's a buildup so here's what's going to happen there's going to be a thousand years
of peace on earth satan comes out he deceives the nations that probably takes a few years
battle of gog and magog happens god rains fire from heaven and destroys them but if you
read carefully back in chapters 38 and 39 he also sends fire in some other places and devours
some other enemies the ones who stayed behind but had the same attitude or were part of the war
machine he sends fire in the aisles of them dwelling at ease as well so he wipes them out
then there's an aftermath of the battle of gog and magog where they clean up the battle they
bury the dead bodies they gather up the weapons and then sometimes shortly thereafter you have the
great white throne judgment the final judgment and then you have the new heaven and the new earth
and then you have of course just a perfect return to the garden of eden in the new heaven
and the new earth where there's no sin and there's no possibility for rebellion in the new
heaven and the new earth because all of the unsaved have been thrown into lake of fire at
that point because at that great white throne judgment i mean all the unsaved are are toast
at that point they're done they're all thrown in the lake of fire so when you go into the
millennium you still have sinful people around but when you go into the new heaven and new earth
it's perfect there could never be another rebellion it's it's only the saved
in their glorified bodies and in a perfect state so it's pretty easy to to to see which
of these two positions is right you know because all the evidence is pointing toward
just the the clear reading of just the obvious revelation 20 gog and magogs after the millennium
the only trump card that the other side's going to pull out is what about burning those weapons
for seven years but when you actually comprehend that for a second it actually ends up proving
the post-trib pre-wrath non-zionist point of view it actually ends up proving that even
more because it makes way more sense to burn weapons when you're at a time of total peace
than when you're in the worst cataclysm that this world has ever seen so what's the what's
the lesson that we can take away from this you say pastor understand you know this is pretty
deep stuff you know give me a practical application you know give me something that i
can use this week you know well here's the practical application the practical application is
that we need to read our bibles and accept it for what it says and spend less time reading
books about the bible and spend more time reading the bible itself lots of christians today
they spend a ton of time reading books about the bible but they've never even read the bible
cover to cover i remember one time i went to a boss at my work and uh was chatting with him
this is back when i was a a very young man and he was a christian and he went to a
non-denominational church in the area but he was saved and and i was talking to him and and
he was one of the managers and and we were having a good conversation about the things of
god and uh we we got on the subject of bible reading and i said to him i said well i think
that you know a good minimum a good rule of thumb for reading your bible is to read it
through cover to cover one time every year you know every year read your bible cover to cover
you know that's a good rule of thumb that way you know that you're you're getting everything
god has for you and how long does that take really about 15 minutes a day you know if you
if you're an average reader if you're a slow reader it might take you a little longer if you're
a quick reader it might be faster than that but it takes about 15 minutes a day to read through
the bible in a year it's like three and a half chapters a day okay so it's not a huge amount
or anything like that and i remember when i mentioned to this guy i said i think that's
a good place to start is is uh it's a good standard you know just to to have as your goal
of i'm going to read the bible at least one time per year here's what he said oh there's
no way i'm gonna have time for that because he said i'm reading the prayer of jay bez right now
and i'm reading this other book right now and i'm going through my daily bread devotional
right now and if you look at the daily bread devotional it's basically a page of man's word
and then there's usually one bible verse so it gives you one verse and then it's just kind
of blah blah blah blah blah blah so he's busy reading all that devotional and then he's got his
prayer of jay bez over here and he's got with a lion in a pit on a snowy day over here
and he's got the left behind series over here so he's he's reading a lot of spiritual things
that are making him feel like i'm learning the bible i'm learning about god i'm learning about
doctrine but he's missing the most important thing which is just picking up the bible and
reading it right so we need to make sure that we don't spend a bunch of time reading books
about the bible that we actually take that 15 minutes a day you know take that 20 minutes a
day or however long it takes you and read your bible and if you read your bible you're never in a
million years going to come up with this thing of oh well gog and magog that's right
before the rapture that wouldn't need that that evil thought would never enter your mind it
wouldn't make any sense but when tim lehay explains it it makes sense the way he breaks it down
why because he's going to take things out of context and get it all turned around but if you
actually just read your bible you'll never come up with crazy stuff like that you you'd
actually just take it for what it said i remember when i was a little kid i i i read
those three words gog and magog and i was like oh so that stuff in ezekiel that's when
that happens you know i mean it just kind of clicked with me because it's not really that
complicated but you know to people who don't read the bible you can pretty much get them to
believe anything so we don't want to be children we don't want to be tossed to and fro with every
wind of doctrine let's make sure that we're reading our bibles for ourselves not just
relying on the preacher to expound it to us on sunday morning sunday night wednesday night
but rather that every day we carve out that 15 minutes and nobody's too busy to carve out
that 15 minutes and you say well you don't know my life pastor because i really am that busy
i really don't even have that 15 minutes well then here's what i'd say to you
if you don't have that 15 minutes then take 15 minutes when you're driving and do it on audio
bible right i mean pull up the there's a there's a great app that you can download the r the kjv
rvg it's called and boom you got your audio bible right there do that while you're brushing
your teeth do that while you're in the shower do that while you eat breakfast do that while
you eat lunch do that while you drive there is no excuse to not spend 15 20 minutes in the word
of god every single day see i'm a bad reader listen to it but you say oh i'll listen to
preaching no no i didn't say listen to preaching i said listen to bible and i'm all
for listening to preaching but not as a substitute for reading the bible right because you need to
have a time in your life where you just hear from god only with no commentary
no buddy explaining it to you except the holy spirit so carve out that 15 minutes carve out
that 20 minutes and read your bible and don't skip is equal right and say oh i forget is equal
give me psalms right forget jeremiah give me proverbs forget isaiah give me first and second
timothy and i you know you say why you bring that because that's how i used to read my bible
when i was a teenager because i was too lazy to read the whole bible i would always just go
to either psalms proverbs first and second timothy or i would go to the gospels and just
go straight to the red letters you know the red letter bible is straight for the red letters
just give me something quick i'd read about three or four verses and then go back to playing
video games or riding my bike or swimming or what you know but you know let's grow up
and let's read the whole bible don't skip ezekiel don't skip jeremiah don't skip isaiah
read that thing cover to cover and the only way you'll ever read the bible cover to cover
is by having a plan and checking it off you got to check it off it's just show me a marathon
runner who doesn't have a training plan that and and who doesn't log their miles
you're never going to run the amount that you need to run you know i mean show me
any business that doesn't have some kind of a plan some kind of a schedule right of what
they're going to do anything that you undertake in life you got to have a plan
you know so get that bible reading plan check it off otherwise i guarantee you if you just say
well i'm going to freestyle and just read what i feel like you're just going to keep ending
up in psalms proverbs red letters first and second timothy you're going to read those over
and over again you're not going to get the whole picture okay you know make sure you have
and it's okay to read it out of order read it in whatever order you want but just have
some kind of a plan where you're checking them off to make sure you plow through ezekiel
you plow through leviticus etc let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer
father we thank you so much for your word lord and we thank you so much
for all the wonderful things that you teach us and that no matter how old we get and no matter
how many times we read the bible or how many times we go to church we can always learn new
things because there's so much there for us we'll never learn it all and so thank you so
much for giving us this wonderful treasure the word of god and thank you for giving us a brain
that would allow us to understand it lord and the holy spirit to be our teacher and i just
pray that every single person who's here this morning would read their bible and grow in grace
yes but also in the knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ help us to grow in knowledge
and in jesus name we pray amen