In Ezekiel 38 and 39, Gog, from Magog, suffered a terrible defeat on the mountains of Israel in an event that lies in the future as of now, but that could take place in the Middle East within the near future. It constitutes a model for ‘Gog and Magog’ at the end of Christ’s thousand years’ rule, when hostile nations from the four corners of the earth march on Israel and Jerusalem once again. At that time, it will be a very great number of people as they are like the ‘sea sand’ as they come from all over the world. For the umpteenth time in history, Israel will be attacked by ‘the nations’. Israel has so often been the battleground for warring nations in the past; Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Turks, the British, Crusaders and Muslims have all fought on Israel grounds. Even Napoleon crossed the land with his French armies. Battles were fought and blood shed there, time and time again. Gog, who is indeed regarded as an Old Testament type of ‘anti-Christ’, and Magog along with their peoples march on the Holy City and the ‘camp’, the residence, of the ‘saints’. That is where the Lord Himself holds court, in Jerusalem. “The Lord dwells in Zion”1 and “This is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.’”2 That is how it was under Christ’s rule, for a thousand years, and that is being threatened by ‘Gog and Magog’. But not for long as fire comes down from Heaven, just as fire from Heaven destroyed ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’, ‘Admah and Zeboim’3 and just as it consumed the ‘two hundred and fifty men’ who, without authorisation, had offered incense as an act of rebellion against Moses and Aaron,4 and also just as fire settled the case between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.5
Fire comes down on ‘Gog and Magog’ and their hostile armies in the same way. This appears to be foretold prophetically by Ezekiel: “I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulphur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him.”6 Isaiah says: “See, the Lord is coming with fire, and His chariots are like a whirlwind; He will bring down His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.”7 Nothing remains of them: no bodies to bury or to clear up – as was the case ‘for seven months’, in the attack by ‘Gog from the land of Magog’ in Israel.8 The devil, who as an angel is an eternally living being, goes into Gehenna, the lake of fire, hell, where also ‘the beast’ and the ‘false prophet’ are. They will be tortured day and night, for eternity, in every aeon, forever. ‘Gog and Magog’ and all their people have simply disappeared, incinerated after the Heavenly fire, as if they were ‘ghosts’. This marks the end of Messiah’s rule on earth, to make place for the Eternal Kingdom in a New Aeon. There is no question of a fight, like at the Battle of Armageddon. All resistance is futile and opposition is fruitless and powerless when the time comes for the Lord and His Anointed to take the Kingship over the earth in hand. It melts like snow in bright sunshine. Will there be a Temple in the Messianic realm? Not in the function of the sense of the Jewish Temple under the Old Covenant in any case, for the Old Covenant is declared ‘obsolete and aging’ by the New Covenant, and what is ‘obsolete and aging’ will soon disappear.9 Yet, the centre of Messianic Kingship will be in Jerusalem with a Sanctuary, a final Temple. Ezekiel’s Temple looks like being the one.10 Ezekiel 40-48 describes that final Temple, different from the first and the second Temple, with a different lay-out, different sacrifices and so forth.
• This marks the end of the root of all evil, the devil. This is said almost in passing. He is in hell, the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.11 This was not planned for people, apparently, but for celestial beings. However, people who follow the devil will have to follow him there, to Gehenna, as did the beast, the antichrist and the false prophet, and, shortly, all whose names are not written in the Book of Life. Nothing impure will survive.
• “What couldn’t be fulfilled under the rule of Napoleon I can be fulfilled by Wilhelm II,” Theodor Herzl wrote in a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II in March 1899. Herzl’s statements appear to support the claims of those who view Napoleon Bonaparte as the harbinger of the Zionist Movement.
• Napoleon’s Zionist notions met an untimely death, due, in no small part, to the English and Napoleon himself. The brief romance took place during the French general’s military campaign in the Middle East. In the summer of 1798, he conquered Egypt; and in the summer of the same year, he led 30,000 soldiers through the Sinai Peninsula and into the Land of Israel. On March 7, 1799, Napoleon took control of Jaffa, and then headed north to besiege Acre.
• Napoleon intends “to restore to the Jews their Jerusalem,” read a French report at the time, while another report claimed that “Bonaparte published a proclamation that calls on all the Jews of Africa and Asia to rally around his flag in order to re-establish ancient Jerusalem.”
• If you are interested in the final Temple: try to find a copy of the book of Chaim Clorfene (1939 – present), born in Chicago, Illinois he resides in Safed, Israel. He is a recognized authority on the Third Temple and the Messianic era, “The Messianic Temple: Understanding Ezekiel’s Prophecy” Rabbi Chaim Clorfene has given us a major work that explains every detail of Ezekiel’s vision of the Final Temple. The Messianic Temple presents the last nine chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, verse by verse, in the original Hebrew with a new English translation and classic commentaries.
Bible References:
1.Joel 3:21 NIV 2.Zechariah 8:3 NIV 3.Genesis 19:24; Hosea 11:8-9 4.Numbers 16:35 5.1 Kings 18:38 6.Ezekiel 38:22 NIV 7.Isaiah 66:15 NIV 8.Ezekiel 39:12 9. Ezekiel 37:15-28; 40–48 10.Matthew 25:41 11.Revelation 20:15
