Sept 2

This is one of the most interesting and contraversial prophesies in scripture....and as the author points out, it has not been fulfilled yet. I don't feel I know all the arguments well enough to even remotely comment on Gog of Magag etc........ But I do like to look at all the different theories. If you believe as I do that we are living in or near to the end times, then you believe that prophesy has great relevance for us today. But it is a very difficult subject

One thing I like to keep in mind is that although the Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah coming were available for hundreds of years and men spent their lives studying them, to my knowledge there is not one single person who studied all these ahead of time and said "AH HA! I've got it. I know how all these can fit together. A young virgin from Nazereth will conceive, she'll give birth in Bethlahem, flee to Egypt............. ." You get where I'm going. BUT when these events started happening, if they 1) knew the scriptures 2) had an open mind (got their human preconcieved ideas of having a political leader/earthly king out of the equation)  3) prayed for spiritual guidance (the only ones who had a clue were Anna and Simeon who had been shown in the spirit that this was the Messiah), THEN they would have recognized the time of His coming.

There is a ton on info out there about the battle of Gog of Magag. I suppose the most common theory is that they are from the Russian area. I'm not even sure I think that it is refering to a people or people group. The thing that struck me was refering to Gog as 'cheif prince'. This reminded me of language used in Daniel 10:13 (which we haven't read yet) when the angel who is speaking to Daniel tells him he was delayed:

But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.

This is all clearly refering to a spirit world that we know little about. Personally, the similarity in language makes me think that this is refering to a spiritual world also. It may have some real life physicial implications however (wars etc).

There are lots of interesting theories to study- just google :)

One thing I have heard people say is that if this is taken to be a literal place and people (like Russia) that invades Israel in the future and people read this passage, they (US and other Israel allies) will say, 'Oh well, no need to help them, God will save them'. The Bible (which always has to be considered as a whole) says that "God will bless them who bless you and curse those who curse you". So keep all these things in mind as world events unfold. Study the scriptures primarily, the theories of prophecy scholars secondarily but my advice is not to marry yourself to any one theory. Like the beautiful and unpredicatable story of the First Coming- know enough to recognize it when you see it, but don't try to figure out too much ahead of time or you might be so stuck on your own idea that you miss something big.