(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, well we're there in Ezekiel, chapter number 38, and we've been working our way through the book of Ezekiel. It's 48 chapters, and we are in chapter 38, and I've been learning about it, taking one chapter every week. And if you remember last week, we started a new section, the last section of the book of Ezekiel. The book of Ezekiel is divided into different sections, and last week we began the last section which deals with end times prophecy. This week we're going to start a two-part, a two-chapter section within that section. So we're still in the end times section, but chapters 38 and 39 deal specifically with an end times battle called the Battle of Gog and Magog. And there is a lot of confusion and controversy in regards to this battle, and there's only confusion and controversy when you don't allow the Bible to just teach you and tell you what it means and when you come to the Bible with a preconceived idea or with preconceived theology that you're going to try to squeeze into it. And what I want to do tonight is just explain to you this battle, teach you this battle, and help you understand what the Bible teaches in regards to this. Now you're there in Ezekiel 38. I want you to notice verse 1, it says this, and the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against, and I want you to notice the words, Gog, the land, against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief priest of Meshach and Tubal. Now I want you to keep your place there in Ezekiel 38, that's our text for tonight. We're going to spend two weeks on this Gog and Magog. This is Gog and Magog part 1, we'll study chapter 38. Next time we're in the book of Ezekiel, we'll do Gog and Magog part 2, and we'll look at verse 39. But I'd like you to go to the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 20, it should be fairly easy to find, last book in the New Testament, Revelation chapter 20, and I want you to notice verse number 8, Revelation chapter 20 and verse number 8. And the first thing that we're going to notice as we study this idea, this battle of Gog and Magog, is the connection of the Gog and Magog passages, and if you're writing notes down, maybe you can jot that down. You have to understand the connection between the Gog and Magog passages, and maybe that doesn't make sense to you, but it'll make sense in a minute. Look at verse 8, Revelation chapter 20 and verse 8. The Bible says this, and shall go out to deceive the nations, which are in the four quarters of the earth, notice the words, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Now in Revelation 20, we have a lot of information that we're given, in fact we're going to go through the first part of that chapter in our Bible study tonight, and I'm going to explain it to you, and we're going to go through it. But I want you to notice that in Ezekiel 38, you have the mention of Gog and Magog, and then in Revelation chapter 20, you have the mention of Gog and Magog, and what you need to understand is that in the Bible, there is nothing that is incidental, accidental, or coincidental. Everything in the Bible is put in there for a reason, and when God references back, when we're in the book of Revelation and there's a battle going on, and then he throws in the names Gog and Magog, he does that on purpose because he wants us to connect the passage in Revelation chapter 20 that mentions this battle of Gog and Magog with the chapters in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that also mention this battle of Gog and Magog. And here's what I want you to understand, Gog and Magog are not mentioned that much in scripture. In fact, Gog and Magog in regards to end times prophecy battles are only mentioned in the book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39, and the book of Revelation, chapter number 20. Now there are other times, just a few times, where the name Magog or the name Gog is mentioned in the Bible, but every other time it's mentioned as just a name and a list and a genealogy, and I'll go ahead and give those to you. In Genesis chapter 10 and verse 2, you see the name Magog, and again, it's just a name given in the midst of a big list of just a genealogy of people. We're just told that there was a guy named Magog. In 1 Chronicles 1, 5, same thing, you see the name Magog in a list of genealogies. In 1 Chronicles 5, 4, you see the name Gog, again, just in a list of genealogies, and then that's it. And really, and there's no information given, we're just told that there's somebody named Magog, somebody named Gog, but then the only places that we are given information about Gog and Magog and the battle, which is what they're known for, is Ezekiel 38, 39, and Revelation chapter 20. Here's why I'm making a big deal about that, because of the fact that today, when you study this battle of Gog and Magog, and when you, if you do research on it, if you Google it online, if you read books, there's lots of books written about the battles of Gog and Magog, and when you listen to the people who are the primary teachers on this subject, those who either believe a pre-tribulation theology, or those who believe in dispensationalism, here's what the hilarious thing is, that they will tell you that the Gog and Magog mentioned in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and the Gog and Magog mentioned in Revelation chapter 20, are not the same Gog and Magog. You know, I mean, it's not like those are common names, all right? It's not like we're talking about a guy named John, okay? They'll say, these are not the same Gog and Magog, and they'll say, these two battles have nothing to do with each other, and they'll say, you know, this has nothing to do with each other. The Gog and Magog mentioned in Revelation, and the Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39 have nothing to do with each other. I'm going to disprove that to you tonight, I'm going to show you from the Bible that these are the exact same battle, the exact same timeframe, but here's why they will make that, they will make that teaching or they'll have that teaching, is because it goes against their theology. To put Gog and Magog in Revelation chapter 20 in the chronology that you find, it goes against their pre-tribulation dispensational theology, so they just put their head in the sand, and they'll say, no, these aren't connected. And today, the pre-tribbers and the Zionists and the dispensationalists, they'll tell you the battle of Gog and Magog is, there's different positions they take. They'll say it's either going to happen before the rapture, which is funny because they believe, you know, in an imminent rapture, it can happen at any time, or they'll tell you that it's going to happen during the tribulation, which they believe is after the rapture. Obviously, they don't, they also ignore Matthew 24 when it says, you know, that the rapture happens after the tribulation, but they'll say these things, and they'll say these are events that could happen right now. And in fact, if you do research on Gog and Magog, you'll find a lot of books and articles and videos and things where people are telling you, Gog represents, you know, Gog and Magog, they represent these communist countries, and some people tell you it's Russia, some people tell you it's North Korea, some people tell you it's China, it's these nations coming from the north, and they're going to attack the United States, and they're going to attack the modern day nation of Israel, and they'll try to apply it to life today, but when you just look at the Bible, when you come to the Bible with no preconceived ideas, with no agenda, and you just allow the Bible to define itself, you will find that it's very simple, very easy to understand, and the first thing you need to do is that you need to connect the Gog and Magog passages in Ezekiel 38, 39 to Revelation 20. Now it's not just connecting them because the names are mentioned, we're going to go through it, and I'm going to show you the correlation and that these are talking about the same event, but it's not by accident that Ezekiel describes a battle against the nation of Israel, and it's Gog and Magog coming against the nation, and then God in the book of Revelation tells us about another battle about the nations of the earth coming against the nation of Israel during the millennial reign, and it's called Gog and Magog, that's not an accident, that's not a coincidence, God is telling us these things as he wants us to connect these things together. So the first thing you need to understand when it comes to Gog and Magog is the connection of the Gog and Magog passages, which are not many, it's Ezekiel 38, 39, and Revelation chapter 20, and it's just a few verses where it's mentioned. So the fact that there are only two major references to Gog and Magog means that we must connect these passages. Now let me just give you one more thought when it comes to the connection of these passages, and it is this, you're there in Revelation chapter 20, we're going to go back and forth between Ezekiel 38 and Revelation 20 tonight, so make sure you've got a finger in both passages, but go to Revelation chapter 1, and I'd like you to look down at verse number 1. Here's the next statement you need to kind of understand about this passage, and it's this, whenever we are studying end times prophecy, the New Testament, and specifically the book of Revelation, but any New Testament prophetic writing is meant to reveal to us, and we should use it to shed light on the cryptic Old Testament prophecies. Here's what you need to understand, whenever we are studying the Bible, and this is where people make a lot of mistakes, they try to go to these cryptic Old Testament passages like Ezekiel or Daniel that are hard to understand, that are hard to make sense out of, and then they try to use those to interpret or shed light on the easier to understand passages in the New Testament. This is a wrong way of studying the Bible. Revelation chapter 1, look at verse 1. Notice what the Bible tells us about the book of Revelation. Revelation 1, 1, it's called the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now the book is called the book of Revelation because the first thing that God told John when he wrote this book is that he was going to give him the revelation of Jesus Christ. What does the word revelation mean? It means the act of revealing. It means the act of exposing. It means the act of making note. The book is called the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, notice, why did God give John the book of Revelation? To show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. The word show there, you've got an older spelling. It's just the same word as our word show today, S-H-O-W. It means to put on display, to be seen. The Bible tells us that the book of Revelation was given to reveal to us, to put on display for us, to show to us the things that will shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified it unto his angels, unto his servant John. Here's the funny thing. The book of Daniel tells us the opposite. The book of Daniel tells us that Daniel couldn't even understand it himself. Daniel was writing the prophecies and he was having trouble understanding what he was writing. Ezekiel is probably, if not the most difficult book to understand in the Bible, it's definitely up there, maybe the second most difficult book to understand in the Bible, and today you have people say, no, we've got to take Daniel and Ezekiel to understand Revelation. No, you've got it all wrong. You take Revelation to understand the cryptic passages because the purpose of the book of Revelation is to reveal to us, to show to us the things which must shortly come to pass. Today the Dismissationalists, the pre-tribbers, they teach Gog and Magog of Ezekiel is a different Gog and Magog than Revelation, but this is not the case. So the first thing we need to understand when you're talking about Gog and Magog is the connection between the passages. The second thing you need to understand is the context of the passages. So we must understand the connection of the Gog and Magog passages, but we must also understand the context of the Gog and Magog passages. So let's look at the context together. We're going to look at it in Revelation and then we're going to look at it in the book of Ezekiel. Are you there in Revelation? Go to chapter 20, look at verse 1. Revelation chapter 20 and verse 1, and let's just read it. Now look, I'm not going to read it and tell you, you know, well this word here actually doesn't mean this, and in the Greek it means something else. We're just going to read it and we're going to look at the context of Gog and Magog and this battle. Revelation chapter 20 verse 1, notice what the Bible says. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan. Notice how he goes out of his way to make sure we know who he's talking about. Because it's the book of Revelation, right? It's exposing for us, it's laying open for us, he wants to make sure we understand. And he laid hold, so we've got the angel which came down from heaven, he had the key of the bottomless pit and he had a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, notice, and bound him, because he's got a great chain in his hand and bound him a thousand years. So here's what we see at the beginning of this chapter. Here's the context. After the Battle of Armageddon, I'm not going to take time to go through that, if you look at chapter 19, which we're not going to read, but you can read that on your own, we see the Battle of Armageddon. We might talk about that maybe a little bit next week. But we see the Battle of Armageddon and as soon as the Battle of Armageddon is over, the angel comes down from heaven and he takes, remember, at the Battle of Armageddon, you had the Lord Jesus Christ, he came down on a white horse, you've got the saints coming down with him and he cast the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire. And then we see that the devil is bound and he is bound for a thousand years, notice verse three, and cast him into the bottomless pit. So the angel cast the devil, the dragon, the serpent, Satan, he cast him into the bottomless pit, let's talk about hell, which is in the center of the earth, and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more, notice, till the thousand years should be fulfilled and after that, after what? After the thousand years, he must be loosed a little season. So look, it's very clear, after the Battle of Armageddon, we have Satan, he is bound and he is imprisoned in the bottomless pit for a thousand years, that he should not deceive the nations, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years be fulfilled, notice verse four, and I saw thrones and they that sat upon them and judgment was given unto them and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ, notice, a thousand years. So after the Battle of Armageddon, you have Satan who's bound for a thousand years, he's imprisoned in the bottomless pit and then what happens here on earth during those thousand years while Satan is imprisoned in the bottomless pit? Well, we have what's known as the millennial reign of Christ or the thousand year reign of Christ, look at verse four, and I saw thrones and they that sat upon them and judgment was given unto them, look at the last part of verse four, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. So we have, after Satan is bound, we have the millennial reign of Christ which takes place and saints rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years, verse five, but the rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection, blessed and holy is he that had part in the first resurrection on such the second death had no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. And I don't have time to get into the millennial reign, I preached an entire sermon not too long ago, I think at the Prophecy Conference, I preached a sermon on the millennial reign of Christ and it's on our YouTube channel if you want to check it out. But here's the context, after the battle of Armageddon, we have Satan, he's bound, he's put in the bottomless pit for a thousand years. While he's in the bottomless pit, we have the millennial reign of Christ where we rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years here upon the earth. Look at verse seven, we're looking at the context, and when the thousand years are expired, so the millennial reigns over, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. What prison? The bottomless pit. And shall go out, notice what he goes out to do, 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 compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. So what's the context? The context is this, we have the Battle of Armageddon, Revelation 19, Satan is bound for a thousand years, imprisoned in the bottomless pit. We have a thousand year reign of Christ while he is bound, and then when the thousand years are expired, he's loosed, he's let go from his prison, and he goes out and he deceives the nations and he gathers them together from the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them to battle against God and the people of God, notice verse nine, and they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. Now look, according to that, according to Revelation, all we did was we just read it. I read it, kind of explained a few things, but I didn't really explain anything that you can't just see on the page there. According to that, when does the Battle of Gog and Magog take place? It takes place after the millennial reign of Christ. So look, there's no way that it's Germany. There's no way that it's Moscow. There's no way that it's North Korea. There's no way that it's, you know, whatever country you... There's no way it's happening now. There's no way it's happening. We have to go through the tribulation, the rapture, the battle of Armageddon, the judgment seat of Christ, the millennial reign before we even get to Gog and Magog. So look, none of this, and it's interesting, somebody brought up, and I remember when I was a kid, I watched that, you know, if you watch that old Left Behind movie, the movie starts with Gog and Magog, the Battle of Gog and Magog before the rapture even happens. This is what these pre-tribbers teach. But look, is that what the Bible teaches? I mean, did I confuse anybody? Was there any part of this that I had to try to change for you and say, well, you don't really understand this. Look at my big dispensational chart. I'm up here like John Hagee with all my big pictures, and look at that, it's still confusing. Look, we just read it. It's easy. If you're saved, it's easy. If you got the holy spirit of God, it's easy. You got the Battle of Armageddon. Satan is bound for a thousand years. While he's bound, there's the millennial reign of Christ. After the millennial reign of Christ, he's loose for a season, he goes out and gathers the nations against the people of God, and you have the Battle of Gog and Magog. When does it happen? After the thousand years of Christ, the millennial reign of Christ. And the pre-tribbers will say today, well, that's what Revelation chapter 20, which we don't want to talk about. That's what that Gog of Magog is about. But there's another Gog in Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that's about 1948, and it's about the Jews getting their land back, and it's about Russia coming against Israel. Okay, well, let's look at it. Ezekiel 38, go to it. Ezekiel 38. So we talked about the connection. How do we study Gog and Magog? Will we connect the dots? It's only mentioned, you know, really only mentioned three times, Ezekiel 38, 39, Revelation 20. And Ezekiel 38 and 39 are just talking about the same thing. So you got Ezekiel and Revelation. So you connect the two passages, you look at them, you say, okay, God, you know, why does God mention Gog and Magog in Revelation 20? Because he wants us to connect it back to Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Then you see the context. What's the context? The context is that the battle happens after the millennial reign of Christ. You say, well, what about the Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 and 39 after the millennial reign of Christ? Say, prove it to me. Well, Ezekiel 38, look at verse 8. After many days, thou shalt be visited, don't miss this, in the latter years. Every time you see that, latter years, latter times, latter days, latter reign, that is the keyword end times prophecy. After many days, thou shalt be visited in the latter years, look at verse 16, same chapter, and thou shalt come up against my people of Israel as a cloud to cover the land, it shall be in the latter days. Okay, so Ezekiel 38 tells us this is something that's gonna happen in the latter days. This is something that's gonna happen in the future. Now I don't have time to go back and preach through all of the chapters that have been leading us up to Ezekiel 38, and if you haven't been with us, then I would encourage you to go back and listen to those sermons, but let me just recap what we've been learning in the book of Ezekiel over the last several weeks. If you remember, we started a new section in the book of Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 36. How did we know that it was a new section? Well, the wording changed very dramatically. It went from a very negative book where God was just against the children of Israel and your idolatry and your sin and the glory of the Lord has departed the temple. In Ezekiel 38, it becomes a positive message where he's saying, I'm gonna defend you against your enemies, and I'm gonna bless you, and I'm gonna do all these things for you. And what was the major thing we saw in Ezekiel 36? We saw the new covenant. Remember he said, I'm gonna make a new covenant with you. Well, what is that? It's the New Testament. It's the fact that he said, I'm gonna finish off the old covenant, and I'm gonna create a new covenant. I'm gonna have a New Testament, and this is where we live. We're New Testament believers. So in Ezekiel 36, we have that great Old Testament passage, which is just one of several that tells us that God was getting ready to finish the old covenant and to begin a new covenant. Remember what we saw in Ezekiel 36? What was it? That he was gonna put in them, he was gonna put his spirit in them, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is not something we see in the Old Testament, that he was gonna create them new and new creatures. We saw the regeneration. Okay, that's what we saw in Ezekiel 36. What about Ezekiel 37? Well, if you remember Ezekiel 37, we saw the resurrection and the millennial reign of Christ. I mean, read it. He's talking about, I'm gonna prophesy, and my spirit is gonna open up your graves, and I'm gonna bring your bones out of the graves, and I'm gonna put sinews on them and muscle on them and skin on them. And what is that? That's the resurrection. And again, I'm not gonna go back and re-preach that sermon. You can listen to it from last week, but here's what we saw in Ezekiel 37. We saw the resurrection of believing Israel. We saw the nation, the united nation of believing Israel coming back together. Remember he had those two stakes, and he said right on one Judah and right on one Joseph, and he said these represent the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom, and he said bring them together because I'm gonna reunite them. Here's what we saw in Ezekiel 37. We saw the resurrected King David reigning over Israel in Jerusalem, and then we saw the Lord Jesus Christ reigning as King of Kings from Jerusalem. We saw that in Ezekiel 37. And in Ezekiel 37, we saw the tabernacle of God dwelling with man. What is that? Millennial reign. So look, doesn't it make sense? If in the book of Revelation you have the Battle of Armageddon, you have Satan bound for a thousand years, you have the Millennial reign, and then you have the Battle of Gog and Magog, wouldn't it make sense that if in chapter 37 of Ezekiel we have the Millennial reign, then in chapters 38 and 39 we'd have the Battle of Gog and Magog, which according to the book of Revelation happens after the Millennial reign? Look, the correlation between these chapters and looking at the chronology is very specific that it has to do with a battle that comes after the Millennial reign of Christ. So this doesn't apply to Jews today. You say, what Jews will it apply to? What nation of Israel will it apply to? It will apply to the nation of Israel that gets resurrected from the graves. It will apply to the nation of Israel that has Jesus, the son of David, ruling and reigning from Jerusalem. That is the nation of Israel. It will apply after the Millennial reign. Now let's look at the passage. We're going to go back and forth between Ezekiel 38 and Revelation 20. Go to Revelation 20 and verse 7, and let's just look. There are three major themes, and again, next time we meet and the next time we're in the book of Ezekiel, we'll look at more things and more details out of chapter 39. Tonight we're going to focus on 38, because that's our chapter for tonight, but I want you to notice that there are three major characteristics that we see, because in Revelation there's only three verses that are given to the Battle of Armageddon. It's not like, he doesn't go into a lot of detail about it, but in those three verses we find three major characteristics for the Battle of, excuse me, I said Armageddon, for the Battle of Gog and Magog in the end times after the Millennial reign, and let me just explain to you something about the Battle of Armageddon, and we'll get into more detail next week about this. But the Millennial reign, it's basically book cased by two battles and two judgments. You have the Battle of Armageddon and the judgment seat of Christ leading into the Millennial reign of Christ, and you have the Battle of Armageddon and the great white throne judgment coming out of the Millennial reign of Christ, and we'll get into all of that next week, but that's why you see that in scripture and sometimes people get confused by that. So tonight we're talking about the Battle of Gog and Magog, which is after the Millennial reign. Revelation 20, verse 7, notice what the Bible says. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of the prison and shall go out, notice the first characteristic, 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. So the first characteristic we see in the book of Revelation, the Gog and Magog after the Millennial reign, is that there is a confederacy of nations coming against the people of God. The devil is loosed from his prison, and he goes out and he deceives the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, and he gathers them together, and it's a huge massive army, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. So here's what we see in Revelation, a confederacy of nations coming against the people of God. Let's ask this question, do we see that characteristic in Ezekiel 38 and 39? Go back to Ezekiel 38. Like I said, tonight we're going to focus on 38, next time we'll do 39. Look at verse 4. Ezekiel 38 and verse 4 says this, and by the way, we're going to look at every verse in this chapter tonight. We've already looked at verses 1, 2, and 3, look at verse 4, and I will turn thee back and put hooks into thy jaw, and I will bring thee forth, notice what he says, and all thine army. He says, look, it's all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sort of armor, even a great company with bucklers and shields and all of them handling sword. Notice verse 5, does this sound like a confederacy of nations? Does this sound like nations that have been gathered together from the four quarters of the earth, or we would say the four corners of the earth, north, south, east, west? Look at verse 5, Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya, with them all, of them with shield and helmet, Gomer and all his bands, the house of Torgarmah of the north quarters and of all his bands, and many people with thee, be thou prepared and prepared for thyself, thou, notice, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. Look at verse 9, and shall ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou and all thy band, and many people with thee. Look at verse 12, to take a spoil and to take a prey, to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations. Don't miss that. Which have gotten cattle and goods that dwell in the midst of the land, Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? Has thou, notice, gathered thy company to take a prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and good, and to take a great spoil? Look at verse 15, and thou shalt come from thy place out of the north part, thou and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army. Okay, what do we see in Revelation 20? A great confederacy of nations, a great army coming against the people of God. What do we see in Ezekiel 38? A great confederacy of nations, a great army coming against the people of God. There's three characteristics. First one applies to both, check, confederacy of nations. Now people will say things like this, they'll say, well Ezekiel 38 can't be about end times prophecy, because it's saying that they're going to have bucklers and shields, horses and horsemen, that they're going to have the swords and helmets, if it was end times it would say that they're going to have tanks and fighter jets. Okay, look that's silly, and you say, well what is the correlation there, or how do we understand this? And here's what you need to understand, God always had the writers of his scriptures speak in the terms of their day. Obviously you're not going to have John in the Isle of Patmos talking about skyscrapers, they always spoke in the terms of their day, you say, well what is the point that Ezekiel's trying to get across? He's trying to get across that this is not just an army, but it's a very well equipped army, that they have a lot of weapons, they're a formidable foe. He's looking at a military time and using the verbiage of a military of his day that would be a great military power, and he's speaking in the terms of his day. So you're never going to see in the Bible where you've got these guys talking about end times, and they're going to be talking about using terms like today, I saw helicopters, and I saw planes, and I saw missiles. You're not going to use those terms, in fact a lot of times I believe, like when we see the destruction of Babylon in Jeremiah 15, 51, he talks about arrows that did not miss their mark. I think he's talking about missiles, but he uses the terminology of his day, so don't let people use that as a reason to not connect these terms or to not believe the Bible. We see the confederacy of nations coming against the people of God in Revelation 20, Ezekiel 38. So first characteristic is checked, they both got it. What's the next characteristic? Well go back to Revelation chapter 20 and verse 4. Notice and I've already made this point, but let me just make it again. We see that the people of God are dwelling safely and carelessly in the land. Now why are they dwelling safely and carelessly in the land? Here's what Revelation reveals for us, that the nation of Israel is dwelling carelessly and safely in the land because it's after the millennial reign, it's after the millennial reign of Christ. Revelation 20 verse 4, and I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received the mark upon their foreheads or their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Look, the antichrist is in hell, the false prophet is in hell, Satan has been bound for a thousand years, and what characterizes the millennial reign of Christ? What is the big major theme of the millennial reign of Christ? It's this, that there's going to be peace on earth, and there will never be peace on earth until the prince of peace is reigning on the earth. That's the millennial reign of Christ. And if you study the passages about the millennial reign, what do you read? The bear lays down with the ox, the lamb lays down with the lion. Why? There's peace on earth. Why are the children of Israel, the nation of Israel, in Revelation 20, why are they dwelling carelessly and safely because they've been living like that for a thousand years during the peaceful reign of Christ? Okay, do we see them reigning? Do we see them dwelling safely and carelessly in the land in Ezekiel 38, verse 8? Well, look at it. Ezekiel chapter 38, look at verse 8, after many days, thou shall be visited in the latter years. Okay, he's telling him, this is not now, this is end times. Notice what he says is going to happen in the latter of the years, thou shall come into the land. See, they're going to get their land back. Yeah, they are, during the millennial reign. That is brought back from the sword and gathered out of my people against the mountains of Israel which have been always ways, but it is brought forth out of the nations. Notice what it says, and they shall dwell safely, all of them. So he says, the nation of Israel, he's got, he said, I'm going to give you back the land and you're going to dwell safely, all of them. Look at verse 11, and thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. He says, these people are living, what are the walls? What's the purpose of the wall? It's for protection. These people are living in unwalled villages. I will go to them that are, notice, at rest and dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil and to take a prey, to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods and dwell, notice, in the midst of the land. So they dwell in the land, in Jerusalem, in Israel, but they dwell there at rest. They dwell there safely. They dwell there without walls. They lived in unwalled villages. They have neither bars nor gates. They dwell safely, all of them, this is what the Bible says, look at verse 14, therefore son of man, prophesy and say unto God, thus saith the Lord God. In that day, notice, when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know. Now let me ask you this, does the nation of Israel today dwell safely in their land? I mean, are they dwelling in unwalled villages over there? Because I went there. There's walls everywhere. There's walls and barbed wire. I mean, are they just dwelling without walls? There's no bars. There's no gate. Look, that's how you describe the land. Walls and graffiti and barbed wire, they are not dwelling safely. They are not dwelling in the land safely. They are afraid of all of their neighbors. Look, this passage cannot apply to the nation of Israel, the present nation of Israel today. They're not dwelling safely. Okay, whoa, whoa, no, it's after the rapture, during the tribulation, and keep in mind, this is their wording, not mine, all right? The rapture is after the tribulation. They confuse the tribulation with the wrath of God, but let's play their game. Let's just say they're right. It's the pre-tribulation rapture. We all get raptured out of here. Nothing bad ever happens to any of us. And then you have the tribulation period, which they confuse with the wrath of God, but you have the tribulation period, which they think that's when the world war starts, that's when the antichrist isn't killing those who are slain for the testimony of Jesus Christ, but he's killing the Jews. Okay, so, and that's when the battle of Gog and Magog happened. Okay, so are they dwelling safely then? It doesn't make any sense no matter which way you put it. Look, no matter which way you put it, no matter where you put Gog and Magog, the only way it makes sense is the way that Revelation put it, which is that they're dwelling safely, yeah, at the end of the millennial reign, because they've had no enemies and they've been reigning with the Prince of Peace for a thousand years. So what are the characteristics? He'll say, Revelation 20, Gog and Magog, Ezekiel 38, 39, Gog and Magog, they're not the same Gog and Magog. Well, it looks to me like they're the same Gog and Magog. It looks to me like there's only been one mother stupid enough to name her kids Gog and Magog, right? It's not a different Gog and Magog. I've never met a Gog Jr., Magog III, and then I realize that their leaders are called that and the land is called that. I get that. The characteristics we see is that there's a confederacy of nations coming against Gog and Magog. We see that in Revelation 20. We see that in Ezekiel 38, 39. The next characteristic is that the people of God are dwelling safely and carelessly in the land. We see that in Revelation 20. We see that in Ezekiel 38, 39. Let me give you the third one. Go back to Revelation 20, look at verse 9, Revelation 20, verse 9, and they went up on the breadth of the earth and encompassed the camp with the saints about. Remember, they're going to attack God's people and the beloved city. So what happens? And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. So how does the battle of Gog and Magog end in the book of Revelation, which happens after millennial reign? It ends with God consuming them in a fire. Fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. How does the battle of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38, 39 end? Well, let's look at it. Go to Ezekiel 38, verse 18. And it came to pass at the same time when God shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God. The land of Israel that we just saw dwelling safely in unwalled cities with no bars and no gates. Notice what he says, last part of verse 18, that my fury shall come up in my face, for in my jealousy, notice, don't miss this, 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, skip down to verse 22, I just want you to notice this, and I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood and will reign upon him and upon his bands and upon many people that are with him. And overflowing rain and great hailstones, don't miss this, fire and brimstone. Now Tim LaHaye and John Hagee and all the pre-tribbers want you to think that Ezekiel 38's Gog and Magog and Revelation 20 Gog and Magog are not the same Gog and Magog except for the fact that both of them have people dwelling in the land safely, except for the fact that both of them have a great confederacy of nations coming against them, and except except for the fact that both of them end with God pouring fire down from heaven to destroy them. Oh, it's just a coincidence, but that doesn't fit our charts, our dispensational charts, remember those? Look, you need to come to the Bible with no preconceived ideas. You need to come to the Bible with no preconceived theology and just let the Bible speak for itself because when you find that there are only two parts of the Bible that mention Gog and Magog, Revelation 38 through 29, Ezekiel 38 through 29, Revelation chapter 20, and then you compare the two, they look like they're talking about the same event. So don't let somebody tell you, the Russians are Magog, Moscow, Magog, right? The Germans are Gog, that's what they say. Don't listen, look, it's going to happen after the millennial reign of Christ. It's a battle that happens after the millennial reign of Christ, and when you look at it, when you look at it, it's very clear. When you look at it, now look, next time we meet, next time we're in Ezekiel because next week is 4th of July and we're going to do something else, but next time we're going to keep looking at this in Ezekiel 39, and we're going to look at some things about this battle of Gog and Magog, but just understand some things, and here's some just takeaways for tonight. Number one, when you study the Bible, allow the Bible to interpret itself. The Bible says that we should compare spiritual things with spiritual, that's what we did. We looked at Ezekiel 38, look at Revelation 20, just compared them. You know, don't bring any preconceived ideas into the Bible, let the Bible just speak for itself and realize that God's not trying to confuse you, God's trying to help you, and some of you like to study Bible prophecy, and that's great, I'm happy for you, but just remember this, that we always use the later revelation to interpret the earlier revelation. I'm not talking about the book of Revelation, I'm talking about just the revelation of Scripture, and that's not just Bible prophecy. People try to teach a work of salvation out of the book of Ezekiel, when the book of Ezekiel sounds like you're supposed to repent of your sins to be saved, and it's like, yeah, we're talking about a physical battle with actual people that God's going to destroy, and he's telling them to get right, and they'll say, well, that sounds like you've got to be saved, and it's like the book of John is just like, it's free, believe, believe, believe, believe. You say, how do you study? You let John, you let latter revelation, you let the stuff that God gave us to, and you let that shed light on the rest of Scripture. When the Old Testament, it kind of looks like, this is what this basically, kind of looks like people were saved by works, okay, well, Romans tells us that Abraham was not saved by works, that he was justified by faith, Romans tells us that David was justified by faith, Hebrews tells, you know, the New Testament, it sheds light on the Old Testament, so don't get those things mixed up, I've got to figure out the book of Daniel, look, go for it, but their parts of Daniel, Daniel didn't understand, but the book of Revelation and the New Testament is there for us to learn, God has given us the New Testament to shed light upon the Old Testament, so don't let those things mess you up, and don't let people try to mess you up with those things, because they'll often take these cryptic passages and say, see, it's about this, it's about that, it's about North Korea, no, just let the book of Revelation explain to you what Ezekiel 38, 39, all right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you, thank you for your word, thank you for the fact that you've given us the Holy Spirit and you've given us a Bible that is easy to understand, and Lord, we just pray that you would help us, all of us, to study, to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, and Lord, we just pray that you would help us as we continue through the book of Ezekiel. It is a difficult book, but Lord, help us to study it, to learn it, and to find the applications for our lives, to not only learn the knowledge and to have the knowledge, but also just to take away some things that we can apply in our lives today. In the matchless name of Christ, we pray, amen. All right, we're going to have Brother Matt come up and lead us on a final song, but before I do that, I just want to remind you of a couple of things. First of all, next Wednesday, next Wednesday, or this coming Wednesday, there will be no midweek service. Our midweek service is going to be on Thursday at the annual church picnic, so even if you don't want to come to the picnic, but you...