02102019 Ezek 39:7-9 "The Day of The LORD"

On That Day – The Day of the Lord

Intro: There is a fascination today with the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy – especially when it comes to the promises made to Israel. When God says, “They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever,” there are those who immediately envision the people of the nation of Israel drawn back from all the places they have been dispersed living on a 8,367 sq. miles piece of land in the middle east (Texas = 268, 807 sq. m.) When God says, “My servant will be their prince forever,” these same people have Jesus Christ returning just before a time of great tribulation and then returning again (mentioned in ch. 38, 39 with reference to Gog and Magog) to establish a literal 1000-year reign (taken from ) here upon the earth.

The detailed measurements and descriptions and activities related to Ezekiel’s vision of the temple are literally taken to mean that a new temple will be built on the existing temple mount. The Levitical sacrifices will be reinstituted and God will reign with his son and King Jesus Christ from the most holy place during the millennial period. After all this - God’s eternal kingdom will be established.

Gallons of ink have been spilled on reams of paper in an attempt to understand how these prophecies are being fulfilled through contemporary people, politics, and places.

A man by the name of Joel Rosenberg, a New York Times best-selling author, has written a series of political thrillers that have to do with Middle-Eastern politics, end times, and the return of Christ. The Last Jihad, The Last Days, and The Ezekiel Option are books along the lines of the Left Behind series. Of the Ezekiel Option, Rosenberg writes:

“In the early 1990s, I came across the writings of the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel. More than 2,500 years ago, he predicted a future military alliance between Russia, Iran, and several Islamic countries that would try to destroy Israel and would bring the world to the brink of the apocalypse.

“I have to admit I'm intrigued with the possibility that the relationship between Russia and Iran could be the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. I realize that might seem bizarre to some. But it certainly makes for a compelling premise for a novel. And what if it were true? What if end-times prophecy is coming to pass right before our eyes?

Let me just say this for now: The Ezekiel Option is fiction. But I believe the prophecy upon which it is based is true.”

Rosenberg sees the promise of restoration in fulfilled in the birth of Israel as a modern state in 1948. He sees chapter 38 as referring to the dictator of Russia and suggests that Putin, assuming dictatorial powers, may be the very man Ezekiel had in mind. He also thinks that the blessings that Moses pronounced upon the tribes of Israel in include the prophecy of the discovery of vast oil reserves under Israelite territory which if it is true would change the face of Middle Eastern politics.

This sort of speculation has gone on for centuries. The church father Ambrose, writing in the late fourth century, confidently identified Gog as the Goths. In the seventh century, Gog and Magog were the Arab armies that threatened the Holy Land. By the thirteenth century, Gog had become a code word for the Mongol hordes from the East. The seventeenth century identified Gog as the Roman emperor, the Pope, or the Turks. In the nineteenth century, against the background of the tensions in Asia Minor that culminated in the Crimean War, Rosh was identified as Russia with Scofied later identifying “Meshech” and “Tubal” as the Russian cities of Moscow and Tobolsk. During the 20th century these chapters were thought to provide a biblical commentary on the outcome of the Cold War, with Gog the leader of the Soviet Union. Now we hear about Russia and Iran in alliance against Israel.

But is this the way God intends for us to understand His Word? The Bible is not a book of secret codes that only those who have the key can understand. The key to understanding what are about – both for its original hearers and for us – lies in these verses in the context of Ezekiel and how they relate in their context to all of Scriptures. The first twenty-four chapters of Ezekiel prophesies about a time of great judgment poured out upon God’s people and the Holy City, Jerusalem because of their idolatry and sin. God abandons his people, and it is only a matter of time before they experience the full outpouring of his wrath at the hands of the Babylonians.

give us a series of prophecies against the foreign nations, pronouncing judgment on those who participated and delighted in Israel’s downfall. We are reminded here that God has not turned his back on his people. The promised to Abraham given in , that “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse,” is still in effect.

records the turning point as news of Jerusalem’s fall comes to the prophet. Now God’s wrath has been satisfied and there is hope of a new beginning. This new beginning is outlined in terms of a restoration of the leadership of the people (the shepherds, ch. 34), the land (35:1 – 36:15), and the people who dwell in the land (ch. 36 – 37) as it all culminates in the glorious statements of 37:24-28.

““My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them. “They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever. “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. “My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. “And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever.” ’ ”” (, NASB95)

But here’s the question. Maybe God’s covenant people will be drawn together under one king, in one land, under one God. Maybe there will be peace. Then what? Who’s to say that the entire cycle of sin and judgment in the form of some invading army will not begin all over again, ala the days of the Judges. This is the question that seeks to lay to rest. The purpose of the prophecy against Gog becomes clear in 39:21-29. [READ] This is intended to be a word of reassurance to Israel, the people of God, that the new order of existence promised in chapters 34 – 37 is not reversible. God will never again turn his face away from his people (39:29). Even though trials of the worst imaginable kind may come (and will come) they will do so only under God’s good and sovereign hand. On that day He will “turn the enemy about and put hooks into their jaws” (). On that day he is the one who will “call for a sword against them” (38:21) and who will “enter judgment against him” (38:22). On that day…

““My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. “Behold, it is coming and it shall be done,” declares the Lord God. “That is the day of which I have spoken.” (, NASB95)

Here is the “day” that so many of the other prophets mention. It is a day that refers to the Lord’s intervention in judgment. The day of the Lord will be punishment for the wicked and/or deliverance for the faithful people of God. speaks of the “day of [the Lord’s] vengeance; the day “of the Lord’s burning anger” (). Zephaniah speaks of “the day I will stand up to testify” (). The emphasis over and over again is on the Lord’s personal coming to intervene and to bring things to some conclusion in the world. It is the Lord’s personal intervention that makes this coming day so cataclysmic and so final.

The prophets saw the temporal days of the Lord, his days of judgment in their own lifetimes, as precursors of one, final day of the Lord – an outpouring of his divine wrath. The near and the distant are brought together in a single vision of things to come (prophetic foreshortening). The punishment that fell upon Egypt or Edom or Gog and Magog establishes a pattern for the once for all Day of the Lord that it to come.

It’s not just in the OT that we hear of of this day. This language that Ezekiel uses in these two chapters is carried over into the New Testament and is used there exclusively of and even we know as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

We find the term in a variety of forms: the day of the Lord (), the Day of the Lord Jesus (), the day of the Lord Jesus Christ (); the Day of Jesus Christ (); the day of Christ (), and that day (). All these phrases refer to the same day, and to the same event: the time of Christ’s final and decisive visitation of this world in judgment and salvation as he comes as King to rule over one people in one land. [G.E. Ladd, New Testament Theology, 554-555]

What Ezekiel is talking about when he refers to the day I have spoken of is what the Book of Revelation describes as it draws from these two chapters of Ezekiel some of its imagery and the very names Gog and Magog that appear in the conclusion of its account of human history in chapter 20. There John describes the great battle between the powers of darkness – influencing the world to try to crush God’s people – and the kingdom of God and the sure and total victory of God against these forces, guaranteeing his people the eternal peace he has promised them. That battle takes place over the entire span of human history, but it seems to culminate in one last final and terrible confrontation at the end of history. In Revelation and in the account culminating in Gog and Magog are not a few nations of the earth – still less are they Russia and Iran – making an invasion of Palestine, but the entire unbelieving kingdom of mankind, under the control of Satan, and poured out against the kingdom of God and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The battle is joined by the Lord and is won by him as the head of his heavenly hosts.

The message of is not a coded message for those who live in “the last days,” who by carefully unlocking its secrets will be able to determine the symbolic identity of the key participants in the final struggle. It is a word of encouragement to all the saints of all times and places that no matter what the forces of evil may do, God’s purpose and victory stands secure. If God can defeat the combined forces of Gog and his allies and turn them into fodder for the crows and carrion-eaters, how much more can he take care of us, whatever historical manifestation of the enmity of Satan we face.

1) Although this world is a place of tribulation, God is in control. Gog has his own evil reasons for acting (38:10), but even his wickedly motivated plans can achieve nothing other than what God purposes (38:4). Gog comes intent on plunder, but he does so only because God’s plan and purpose is to bring him to an end that will bring Glory to God.

2) God is going to win. This may seem a simple, even simplistic, point, but it is central to the thrust of the Gog narrative. No matter how big the opposition, how well organized they are, how powerful their weaponry, or how paltry the resources of God’s people, ultimately the plans of God’s enemies will come to nothing. As in , the nations may conspire together and the kings of the earth take a stand against God, but all their posturing causes mirth rather than worry in the heart of the Most High. Ultimately, no matter what Satan throws against the church, the full number of the elect from the north and south and east and west will be brought in and will sit down together at God’s table to share in the heavenly feast.

3) God’s victory means the ultimate destruction of all those who oppose him. Gog and his army end up as a massive pile of corpses, scattered on the face of the earth. (Notice the parallel here between the bones in the valley.) Their weapons are useless against God’s heavenly arsenal of fire and earthquake, hailstones and burning sulfur (38:19–22). Those who came to plunder will end up themselves plundered. Once again adopting the language of , Gog will be terrified in God’s wrath, dashed in pieces like pottery, and destroyed along the way. Those who turn away from God and refuse the sacrifice of Christ have nothing to expect except certain judgment and the raging fire that will consume the enemies of God ().

4) God’s victory means ultimate security of those who trust in him. In , Israel does not have to lift a finger in her own defense. Those who take refuge in the Lord find blessing and security (); God is their refuge and strength, an ever present help in time of trouble (46:1). The certainty of God’s victory should be a source of confidence for the believer as he or she faces an uncertain world:

You are God’s special property and he knows how to take care of his own.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (, NASB95)