Daniel Lesson 50

Russian Invasion of Israel – 11:40-41

Some questions on the feedback cards: Can you name a good Scripture in the Bible to show that during our time of the Church Age there will be no direct revelation from God? There are actually three Scriptures to this effect: 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, which teaches that these gifts ceased with the closing of the Canon; and that Scripture is developed in two books, Doctrine of Spiritual Gifts by George Meisinger, and New Testament Teaching on Tongues by Merrill F. Unger. The second Scripture is Hebrews 2:3-4, with the use of the aorist tense in verse 4 to show that the confirming signs were no longer operational at the time of the writing of the epistle to the Hebrews, or at the level of the second generation Christians. The third verse, Ephesians 2:20, the aorist tense, the Church has been built in time past, once and for all, on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.

What do you say to the non-believer or the weak believer who says they feel jealousy at Jews being chosen people of God? This is the same idea as they feel jealousy at why Christians are the elect in the Church Age. It’s just the election of God and ultimately it is God or man to determine the final course of history, and these people are basically hostile and angry at God. God chooses whom He wants to choose and that’s just the way it is. So it’s an encounter frontally, a frontal collision with a sovereign God’s claim upon history. God designs the history the way He designs history without our consultation. So soften it somewhat you can point out that those who are elect in God’s purposes are not more righteous than those not elect; it is not a case that the Jews is better than the non-Jew. In fact, the Bible in the Old Testament argues precisely the opposite; it is just the fact that God happens to have chosen history to go that way.

Third question: Will the antichrist be a world dictator and will Christians be under the antichrist? When the Church Age ends and man’s world rises, will be Christians be on earth at this time or will Christ come and take us to His kingdom? Referring to the rapture of the Church, the rapture occurs before the tribulation and we’ll get into that this morning so turn to Daniel 11.

The closing chapter of Daniel, given as a revelation from God the Son to Daniel before the days of the incarnation, we find the processes now operating in history coming to their climax and the fact that we are not going to be around when the beast comes has led some to take a very disinterested view of Daniel, that this is nice, we can learn Daniel, write it on a prophecy chart and move on. But God the Holy Spirit is never inefficient in His revelation and if God the Holy Spirit has seen fit to reveal all these details about the beast and the false prophet they must obviously have some application today. What application? We concluded last week by showing that each one of us to a degree has the same kind of heart as the man who will be the beast. All the beast is is a man whose sin nature is totally yielded to satanic dominion, and the beast is a graphic illustration of your soul, what your soul would do if allowed to become totally depraved in every area, all the way to the extreme, extreme, extreme degree. What would a totally depraved individual be like? And the beast is that picture. So the beast does apply today because to a degree all men are beasts, it’s just that one man in the final, final part of history will take it a degree further.

We showed certain things about this beast in verse 36, he will “do according to his own will,” the beast will argue that man’s security must be attained on man’s terms alone. So we have the rise of pure autonomy, that’s human viewpoint negative volition autonomy; man solving his problems on his own resources apart from God. That is autonomy.

Now to show that these trends exist today we can look at our present Secretary of State, not to pick on him particularly but to simply show that in this man’s thinking we have the same kind of autonomous thought. For the first time the United States has a man who has put in official print the fact that basically our foreign policy must be structured on a system of power rather than a system of justice, that power determines what should occur rather than what is just. So in a nutshell what we have is a pragmatist who believes in survival first and then after we survive, then if we are breathing, we apply moral principles. This is a very, very interesting point that we have a man [Henry Kissinger] a man deciding vast policies concerning the United States who ultimately denies the utter foundations of the Christian faith. We are not saying Kissinger is the beast, we’re saying that we’re noting elements in his thinking that will culminate in the beast.

Listen to Kissinger’s own words when he describes the ultimate goal of negotiations. “We must make sure that American security is not completely dependent upon factors outside of our control,” in other words, to maintain security we must have everything under our control and this again is an expression of autonomy. Notice Daniel 11:36, “And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods,” so he will not recognize the claims of justice that has come from the God of Gods, or the Bible. He will demote all gods or cultural conditions.

Daniel 8:23, another feature of this man in the latter days will be he will be “a king of fierce countenance,” and when we exegeted that verse we said that “fierce countenance” doesn’t mean he goes around looking like Scrooge; it means that he is basically an amoral man, he has a hardened conscience; that’s what it’s talking about. He has a hardened conscience so that it’s not a case of morality, it’s a case of calculating power relationships. So that’s one feature; you have an amoral view operating in the future in antichrist.

What else have we said? At the end of Daniel 11:39 we said that the beast was dividing up the land for gain, that is, he has manifested himself as God on earth, and he has done this by a system of military maneuvering and he was paying off his soldiers with real estate.

Now we come to verse 40 and we’re only going to cover this verse this morning; the reason for this is that we can’t go any further in Daniel without making some basic decisions that relate to Revelation and Ezekiel; we’ve got into a passage that however you go here determines how you to over here and over here. So this is a very crucial passage.

Daniel 11:40, “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. [41] He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.” Today what he’s talking about in verse 41 is Jordan. So we have a statement about something that’s going to happen at the end time; the context of Daniel 11 is talking about the beast who by this time in history has attained a sentencing. He has come out of the Roman culture, he is a European, it’s significant that the United States is drawn more and more to the European mold. George Washington in his farewell address, James Monroe, argued for isolation from Europe, that America was in the western hemisphere and Europe was in the east, let’s keep the Europeans there and we’ll run the western hemisphere. But more and more the United States gets drawn into this whirlpool of European thinking; we’ve been drawn into it theologically and we’re being drawn into it politically. The Bible testifies that western civilization will be thoroughly Europeanized by the time the beast attains his power.

Now as the beast attains his power certain things begin to break out in verse 40, namely the king of the south and the king of the north. We’ve got a problem here because we’ve got to correlate this to two other passages. If you look at verse 40 and 41 you see the king of the north and the king of the south. So we have one of our three passages, and we’ve got to solve our problems in these three passages together. One passage is Daniel 11:40 and following, but we can’t solve our problem in this passage without going back to Revelation 16:13, a fore view of the end time looking at the beast. “And I saw three unclean spirits, like frogs, come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” This is the satanic trinity, Satan, the beast and the false prophet, corresponding to the Father, son and Holy Spirit. So we have Satan and his two human agents operating in the world political scene in the final hours. The demons appear in animal form as demons usually appear and as they appeared in ancient history to men, that’s why you have in the ancient world all these pictures of animals, they were basically demons who appeared to men in their dreams.

So “I saw three” of these “spirits, like frogs, come out of the mouth,” and that means that the beast, as he speaks, speaks one with Satan, as Peter spoke one with Satan to Jesus, don’t go to the cross. And this beast, when he utters political announcements to the world in the end hours will be uttering demonic announcements and they will be demonically activated. In other words, when his press releases are made they will have a certain compulsion about them that can only be explained as being demonic.

Revelation 16:14, “For they are the spirits of demons, working miracles, that go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. [15] Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. [16] And he gathered them together in a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” So here we have the gathering of the kings of the world for the final battle, and the gathering point is Armageddon, or the Mount of Megiddo; that great triangular place, that is where all the armies of the world gather together for their final conflict, the final world war. By the way, it’s not the “battle of Armageddon” because it doesn’t occur at Armageddon, it is called in the Scripture the, verse 14, “the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” That’s the official Biblical title for the last world war.

Now we have Revelation 16 and associated passage which speak of Armageddon. We have the king of the north and the king of the south of Daniel 11, and we have one more passage of Scripture that we have to pull in and work with and that is Ezekiel 38 and 39. Ezekiel 38:1, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, [2] Son of man, set thy face against God, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him.” Gog and the land of Magog you can tell from Genesis 10 and the table of nations if Russia. Meshech is a word which the Hebrew scholar [can’t understand word, sounds like: Ga sin ee as] noted a century ago is the forerunner of our modern word, Moscow. Tubal is related to the Russian city Tobolsk. And so we have a clear indication of a prophecy directed against the USSR. “And say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, [4] And I will 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: [5] Persia,” or modern Iran, “Ethiopia [Cush], and Libya [Put] with them,” all of them with shield and helmet, [6] Gomer, and all its hordes;” that is eastern Germany and eastern Europe, “the house of Togarmah of the north quarters,” again eastern Europe, “and all its hordes; and many peoples with thee. [7] Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them,” meaning that Russia will be the command for Eastern Europe, for Iran, and for the south, Ethiopia and Libya.

We have a case where these armies are going to be gathered together; here’s a map. Notice Moscow is just due north of Jerusalem and so they come from the north. The USSR, what is now Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, and probably Somalia; these are the nations that are being addressed in the prophecy of Ezekiel 38. God says prepare because Russia will be the command nation in this alliance of countries.

Ezekiel 38:8, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword,” the land brought back from the sword, Israel has always been a land vested with the sword, war after war after war; the land brought back from the sword looked forward to a time when there is peace in Israel, and when there is peace in Israel, then God will activate the Russian alliance. Notice, I will bring thee “into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people,” the regathering of Israel began officially or was accomplished officially in 1948, “against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.” Which has been a waste, if you’ve watched the slides I’ve shown you’ve seen those desolate hills of Israel and I’ve told you that wasn’t the way it was in Biblical times, it was covered with trees in Biblical times. So verse 8 depicts the modern state of Israel, struggling with a land that was waste, struggling to attain peace, and some day God will bring these nations against it.

Ezekiel 38:9, “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.” That is the entire alliance. [10] “Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought,” this is talking about demonic activation of the Russian leadership. [11] “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, [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, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” If you watched the slides you have noticed how the Jews have reclaimed the land and are turning it into prosperity and one place in particular with tremendous economic prosperity is the Dead Sea. In a day when we’re worried about fertilizers and feeding the world, the Dead Sea in potash resources alone has one trillion dollars worth. So where is the spoil? The spoil is in Israel, and Russia will come; Russia needs fertilizer and Russia needs these things.

Ezekiel 38:13, “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? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” Sheba, Dedan and Tarshish represent nations that are going to protest this movement coming from the north, but notice in verse 13 there is no military protest, it is only a diplomatic note. Sheba and Dedan would apply to Saudi Arabia; and “the merchants of Tarshish,” the best we can do would be the European nations. Tarshish is a word used of Spain and England in Scripture. And “the young lions thereof” would be nations, probably America included, in the European alliance. And so the prophecy is that as Russia and these countries move to crush Israel once and for all, all that will come by way of human help to the nation Israel is a mere diplomatic note, no military aid whatsoever, just diplomatic note. In recent years I think you’ve been kind of trained to think that’s the way we will respond. The only way to deal with bullies is to beat them up and we have not learned that.

Ezekiel 38:14, “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog,” in other words, therefore, because the European nations do not come to the aid of Israel, because they only send a diplomatic note, in that day, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwell safely, shalt thou not know it? [15] And thou shalt come from thy 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: [16] 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, O Gog, before their eyes. [17] Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have 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?” In other words, anti-Semitism, that’s what the prophets have always warned against and that is what will activate this new movement, this northern alliance of nations against Israel, a vast anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic motivation.

Ezekiel 38:18, “And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. [19] 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,” so God predicts in verse 19 just as the Russian armies move into Israel there will come a tremendous earthquake, [20] “So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all 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. [21] 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.” The idea there being a repeat of the Gideon situation, because of the tremendous geophysical disturbances against the Russian army, the Russian army will start shooting at itself because perhaps of disrupted communications, etc. In other words, the armaments will be used internally against themselves. There will be a lack of communication, a lack of coordination.

Ezekiel 38:21, “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. [23] Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.” In other words, many nations throughout the world will look upon the destruction of the Russian army as they invade Israel, as for the first time in 19 or 20 centuries, a great miraculous divine intervention into history, and they will understand that God protects the nation Israel like He protects no other nation.

Ezekiel 39:1, “Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [2] And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee,” and this should not be as in the King James, “the sixth part of thee,” “there will be none of you, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: [3] And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. [4] Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. [5] Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. [6] And I will send a fire on Magog,” the land of Russia, “and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles,” that’s apparently other nations, “and they shall know that I am the LORD. [7] 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 any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.” So there will be a change in religious faith of the nation and a change of the religious faith of the land of Israel coupled with a vast geophysical disturbance, coupled with a tremendous invasion into the land.

That’s the third passage, Ezekiel 38 and 39. Now the problem. The problem is how do all these events fit together at the last time. Are these three passages describing the same event? Are they describing different events? And if they are describing different events then in what sequence do these events occur. It’s a difficult question and many men have come up with different answers.

Here are the three basic views of these Scriptures. The first view, the red indicates Revelation 16, Armageddon; the green indicates Ezekiel 38, the invasion of God; the blue indicates the king of the north and king of the south of Daniel 11. This bracket indicates the tribulation and the mid point of the tribulation.

The first view, basically the same, although it has two modifications, one held by [Bob] Thieme and [Hal]Lindsay, that basically these three are all related together. They ultimately make one and the same, that the king of the north of Daniel 11 is Gog of Ezekiel 38-39, so all three tie together. Also holding this view is Dr. Dwight Pentecost.

Holding a second view is Dr. Walvoord, Dallas Seminary, who holds that the invasion of Ezekiel 38-39 is not the same; Daniel 11 and Armageddon are basically the same campaign, just like Pentecost, Thieme and Lindsay, but he would separate Ezekiel 38 and move it into the first half of the tribulation rather than keeping it in the second half of the tribulation.

The third view, held by Dr. Cooper, and Arnold’s [Fruchtenbaum] who has come here a number of times, is the same as Walvoord’s except he moves Ezekiel 38 out ahead of the tribulation.

Now looking at these three views I want you to notice something. Don’t be discouraged because good men disagree. It’s just the fact that prophecy by nature is somewhat ambiguous for the simple reason it hasn’t happened yet. Prophecy is difficult to get together. So when we discuss these differences we are not discussing a test of orthodox; we’re not in a major area of disagreement among premillennialists, among dispensationalist. This is an adjustment of exegesis on tying these passages together. Now it’s my teaching method to show you these views, why I’m going to defend one, and why I reject two of them. To show you the fact that as I teach this, you ought to be aware that what I am teaching is not universally held within premillennial dispensationalism, that there are differences among men in this area because this is difficult Scripture because it hasn’t occurred yet. We’re talking about events that haven’t occurred.

The significance of those charts, basically for us the significance is in the third one versus the other two, for if the third view is correct it is possible that we will live to see the invasion of Ezekiel 38-39, for it is possible that because it occurs before the tribulation and since the rapture does not have to occur until the tribulation begins, it is possible for Christians to be alive when Ezekiel 38-39 are fulfilled. The rest of the events, no. The other two views differ only in their separation; the first view identifies the king of the north with Gog. So the first view’s major point is that Daniel 11’s king of the north equals Ezekiel’s 38-39 Gog. Views two and three hold that is not so, that the Gog of Ezekiel 38-39 Russia, is not the king of the north pictured in Daniel 11. That’s the difference. So the difference hinges between Daniel 11 and Ezekiel 38-39. Then the difference between the first two views and third one is on the timing. Notice view two and view three do not differ as to kind of action, it differs only as to time of action. The first view and the other view differ as to kind because they hold that Ezekiel 38-39 can be Daniel 11.

I am going to defend the third position, that Ezekiel 38 and 39 can occur before the tribulation, that it is not what is spoken of in Daniel 11. And I’ll do so with three propositions and we’ll show passages that have to do with the three reasons I hold to the third view.

The first reason why I hold to the third view is that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not equal to Daniel 11, that these two passages, in fact, are talking about two different things and if those two passages are talking about two different things then the first view can’t be true because the first view holds that Ezekiel 38 and 39 is the same thing as Daniel 11. So these are reasons why I believe that Ezekiel 38 and 39 do not speak to the same point. In Ezekiel 38 you will notice the only human opponent to God is the diplomatic note of verse 13. Throughout Ezekiel 38 and 39 there is not one statement that the northern confederacy ever encounters a military opponent, rather, the whole thrust of Ezekiel 38 and 39 is that the Russian confederacy comes in against unwalled villages, they’re not even opposed by the Israeli army. It’s as though Ezekiel 38 & 39 is looking to a time when Israel has been disarmed for some reason. And the Russian confederacy suddenly comes upon the land with not even the military opposition of the Israeli army. There is no record, in other words, of any human opposition. The only record of the destruction in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and it’s quite emphasized in the passage, is that the Russian confederacy is smashed by natural catastrophes and it is precisely that that vindicates God’s character.

Notice in Ezekiel 38:23, “Thus will I magnify Myself, and sanctify Myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations,” in other words, God miraculously intervenes in history, naturally destroying a modern army, wiping it out completely, and therefore not a human army opposes but God Himself. So our first reason to support this is that in Ezekiel you have natural opposition; but in Daniel you have human opposition. Turn to Daniel 11:40, “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him; and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow” it’s a verb of military victory,” and pass through, [41] He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many shall be overthrown,” military victory, “and these shall escape…. [42] He shall stretch forth His hand also upon the countries,” and so on, and verse 44, “But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him; therefore, he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to sweep away many,” and so on. Now it’s debatable whether that is the king of the north or the beast in Daniel 11, but whichever interpretation you take of that passage you’ve got human military action that is not mentioned in Ezekiel.

Now another problem why Ezekiel and Daniel probably are not talking about the same thing. Turn back to Ezekiel 39:9, you’ll notice that after all the action of Ezekiel 38 and 39 occurs, notice how long it takes to clean up the mess. “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 handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them with fire seven years,” it will take them seven years to clean up the military debris left from the invasion of the Russian confederacy. Verse 10, “So that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.”

By the way, I might add a footnote here, what about the military weapon systems that you see here. Are these to be literally taken or how is it to be taken? Two considerations: the weapons themselves do not necessarily have to be literal for the reason that in Isaiah it says “they shall beat their swords into plowshares,” and it’s Isaiah’s way of saying you’ll convert the war weapons of that future time to farming tools. It doesn’t mean the farms in the millennium are going to go back to using plowshares, it is the prophets way of getting an anchor on things in his day that literally correspond to things of the future, but that’s the only thing we’ve got. And lest you think that’s hedging, let me remind you that in this country when the railroad first came in the 19^th century what was the steam engine called? The iron horse. And everyone called it the iron horse and thought nothing of it. So why then, if that is acceptable English in the 19^th century America ought it to be an objection when we talk about iron chariots and so on and so on in prophecy.

The other thing, however, to balance that is the tactics that are used in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are definitely presumptive of infantry conventional war, not a nuclear exchange, which suggests a downgrading of the military technology in the latter days. Why? I think there’s some reasons why. Why will armies in the future, just before Christ, downgrade their military inventory to a more primitive weapon system type? Number one, you’ve had major earthquakes and catastrophes all across the face of the earth in the tribulation. Towards the end, as the tribulation approaches this will have happened. What do earthquakes do to pipelines? What do they do to stored petroleum resources? What do the geophysical disturbances do to radio transmission? When you start asking these questions you realize that sophisticated military technology may not operate in the chaos of the tribulation in the end times, and therefore commanders will have to downgrade their weapons systems to systems that are functional, namely the old foot soldier, and perhaps some sort of an armor. And by the way, what is one of our army divisions called, when you see the horses but the First Cav, it’s still called the First Cav, it doesn’t mean they have thousands of horses but it’s known as the Cav. Why? Because it’s basically mobile, shock, strike, that’s their tactic, it would correspond to this. So weapons wouldn’t have… the burning may be some sort of … some people have speculated, some sort of a thing that’s used in the latter days, some sort of material that’s of compressed wood fiber or it could just simply mean the burning as you see modern day wars being burned, the grease and the oil that’s left over, and so on.

But I want you to notice something else. Ezekiel 38:12, “And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. [13] Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD. [14] And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the travelers [passengers] those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. [15] And the passengers that pass through the land, when any see a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog.” So it’ll take seven months to bury the dead and it will take seven years to get rid of the military hardware as a result of God’s slaughter of the northern confederacy.

By the way, I don’t think there’ll be any pacifists around to object to the fact that God does strike at the end times. So we have a seven year clean up in Ezekiel. Now if we’re going to make Ezekiel 38 and 39 identical to Armageddon, then where does the clean up occur? Is Israel going to clean up when Israel is running for their very safety at the end of the tribulation? Israel won’t have time to bury their own dead, leave alone the dead Russians, at the end of the tribulation. And then are you going to send the seven year debris into the millennium? You can’t do that because the Bible says the millennium begins, God supernaturally renovates the earth’s surface, it will automatically be cleaned. So we have a second reason why Ezekiel 38 and 39 must be distinct from Daniel 11. By moving it away from Daniel 11, by moving Ezekiel back away as in views three and four you create room for the cleanup time, which you wouldn’t have if you made them the same.

A third reason why Ezekiel 38 and 39 must be distinct. The allies of Ezekiel are not equal to the allies of Daniel. The allies mentioned of Gog coming into the land, of Gog being the head of them, you remember what those countries were; they included Egypt but in Daniel the king of the south, which is Egypt, always in Daniel, is fighting against the king of the north. So you have a totally different political structure in Daniel 11 than you do in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

And finally a fourth reason why I believe that these two events are distinct is because in Ezekiel the Jews are secure; remember it said they are secure, they’re dwelling in the land, after it’s all over they’re still dwelling in the land and cleaning it up. Turn to Daniel 11:36, before all this gets started the beast has already set up his image, he’s defied the God of Gods, he’s defied the Anointed One, he apparently has already placed his abomination of desolation in the temple and desecrated it, and when that happens the Jews in Daniel 11 the Jews flee. So the Jews are already in flight by the time the events of Daniel 11, between the king of the north and the king of the south occur.

So for these four reasons I can’t see how Ezekiel 38 and 39 can speak of the same thing as Daniel 11; they must be speaking about two different events. Hence, therefore, so far we have said we agree with views two and three against view one.

Now we come to a second proposition, just to reinforce the first one, and the second proposition is that Ezekiel 38 and 39 occurs before Daniel 11, it’s not the other way around, they are in a certain chronological sequence. Why do we say this? Because in Ezekiel 38 where was the place that was left free? Where was the place in Ezekiel 38 that did not get overrun? Wasn’t it Jordan? And then where did the Jews flee when they flee the temple but Petra, which is in Jordan. And so therefore Ezekiel 38 sets up a political situation where God prepares for the future flight of the Jews of Daniel 11. So that’s one reason. Ezekiel sets up the situation for the Jewish flight.

Another reason: as long as you have the world able to come up with an alliance like this, foreseen in Ezekiel 38 and 39, how can you have the beast as the one-world dictator also occurring while all this is happening. In Daniel 11 the beast has already ascended, he’s already the world ruler, he’s already got the world in his hands, and if that’s the case and he’s got the world in his hands, how do you explain the generation of all of this activity involving fantastic power, power so strong that apparently all the beast, if he’s present in Ezekiel 38 and 39, is send a little diplomatic note to wave him off. It’s incongruity between the power accorded the beast in Daniel 11 as the world dictator and what happens when this happens. So we have to say a second reason is that Ezekiel sets up the power vacuum for the beast. When God destroys the Russian armies and slaughters them you have eliminated from the world scene one fantastic power block. That leaves the pressure off of Europe and so now Europe attains the power vacuum and the beast rises to power. So we can see how knocking out Russia prepares the way for the rise of a European leader. There’s not too much the Europeans can do with Russia on the eastern frontier. That’s the second thing, Ezekiel 38 and 39 occurs before Daniel 11.

Now we come to a far more problematic thing and that is if Ezekiel 38 and 39 does occur before Daniel 11, which view do we take, view two or view three. Do we have Ezekiel 38 and 39 occur in the tribulation or do we have it occur before the tribulation. The problem here is that the tribulation is made up of two three and one half year periods. If Ezekiel 38 and 39 occurs in the first three and a half years of the tribulation we are still faced with the problem where is the seven years clean up come in, because if it takes seven years to clean up then you’ve got to clean up beginning from this point extending into the horrible chaos of the Armageddon campaign, and the Israelis aren’t going to be cleaning up the land during the middle of the Armageddon campaign. So again we are forced to go to our third position, and that is that Ezekiel 38 and 39 must occur before the tribulation… must occur before the tribulation.

Now let’s tie this together and see what we’ve come up with. Turn to Daniel 11:40. Daniel, by this position, no longer is mentioning Ezekiel 38 and 39, it’s out of his purview. Daniel is dealing with not Gog, he is dealing with the two spheres of power he has been dealing with all along. What did the king of the north mean before? The Seleucids. Where were the Seleucids? Turkey, Syria. And who was the king of the south all along in the book of Daniel? Egypt. All right, we take Daniel 11:40 to mean the same as it’s meant every other place in the book of Daniel, namely that the king of the north is Syria, this is a minor campaign of Syria and Egypt against the world dictator. These are two renegade spheres of power that come against him, pinching him off, trying to get into the holy land. And this is something entirely different from what happened there. And the reason that Daniel is emphasizing this is because Daniel 11 is the beginning of the Armageddon campaign. With that we agree with everyone, that Daniel 11 and Revelation 16 are the same, they basically… Daniel 11 is the beginning of the wars that lead to the final great day of God Almighty. This is the trigger incident and that’s why Daniel mentions it; at the latter times the battle will start, and here’s how it will start. And Daniel doesn’t mention Gog because that’s not part of the Armageddon campaign, that’s something ahead of it.

To see how this works together let’s look at a chart of time. From where we are now in history to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1914 you have the first major world war. This, many students of prophecy consider significant because Jesus said in the latter times before the tribulation kingdom shall arise against kingdom and surely World War I at least was this. That’s of significance. 1948 is significant because you have the nation Israel officially existing and Israel has to official exist if Jesus is to come back to the nation Israel. And Israel has to officially exist if the antichrist is going to set up temple worship in the land, he makes a treaty with it. So 1948 is very significant. 1967 is very significant because the Israeli’s now control the city of Jerusalem and the temple site. So we’ve already had within our generation the beginning of the fulfillment of prophecy. We have the international scene shaping up so that the next few events can occur with no major break in the way history is now flowing.

In 1975, where we are, we come down to the treaty, skip from 1975 to the treaty of Daniel 9:27; in Daniel 9:27 the beast makes a treaty with the nation Israel that begins the tribulation. So we don’t know when this is going to happen, we just know that at some point after the beast has risen in world politics, this man coming out of the European alliance in some way will make a mutual defense pact with the nation Israel. And when that happens God’s time clock starts again, ticking off the last seven years of Israel’s history. The clock that stopped when Christ was crucified and hasn’t run since 30 AD, that clock will once again start operation. And for seven years the tribulation will occur until Armageddon is concluded by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the tribulation; the tribulation is divided in half because halfway through the tribulation it gets worse and worse and worse until the last three and a half years is hell on earth, literally. Satan is removed from heaven, and he activates the demon powers and then Daniel 11 occurs and Revelation 16 occurs, both those occur in the last half of the tribulation. You have them somewhere in this period, too vague to find out where but here’s where you have Daniel 11 triggering the incident, Armageddon finishing it. The last three and a half years of violence, warfare, and death.

Now, between 1975 and the time the beast makes a treaty several intervening events will occur. Before I mention these, understand that the rapture of the Church, the question was asked—will Christians be around, the Church will be raptured, that is, it will experience transformation of living saints and resurrection. Those Christians who have died since Pentecost, every believer since Pentecost has died will rise from the dead. If we are living when this happens you’ll be walking down the street and your body will suddenly change into a resurrection body and off you’ll go. Big surprise. That is the prophecy of the New Testament and that is Jesus Christ removing His body, because what is the Church called? The body of Christ. Jesus removes His own body from the sphere of history before He crushes history. Judgment must come upon the world and before it can come His body must be removed out from the hand of judgment. And so the Church is raptured. The rapture is what theologians call imminent, in that no prophesied event has to occur to tip you off that’s going to happen. We don’t know when it’s going to happen, never can tell, and never will be able to tell until it has happened. The reason for that, though the Scriptures don’t say is apparently to fool Satan that this is a situation that is confidential, it’s reserved in the throne room when this event is going to be pulled off so that Satan will not have time to make any countermove. The rapture of the Church can occur any time between now and the treaty of Daniel 7. If the treaty of Daniel 9:27 is made we know we made a bad goof in interpreting Scripture.

Now, there are at least three or four events that are kicked out ahead of the tribulation and because they’re ahead of the tribulation we may live to see these. One is the communist invasion of Ezekiel 38 and 39; the Russian alliance may come down and the Russian military completely crushed by what will appear as a natural disaster, but which those with Biblical insight will know, yes, we know, that natural disaster wasn’t an accident.

Another event we may live to see is the Jews building their temple on the very spot of Solomon; the rebuilding of the third temple which must occur because the antichrist must desecrate the temple. This may be the second thing.

The other thing that we may see is a great European confederacy of nations including the United States, the Revived Roman Empire as it’s sometimes called, probably divided up into ten spheres and in one of those spheres is going to be a very, very intelligent leader who will emerge to control all of them and that will be the beast, but it’s hazy as to when he gains control. At least we can say these three events we may live to see.

If you see the Russians mobilizing for a vast invasion upon Israel, and you see Israel and Ethiopia somehow drawn into this military move against Israel, stand by for some very interesting current events.

What can we draw by way of conclusion of the lesson today. Is this again just prophecy? Is Daniel just a manual on what’s going to happen in the future? No, the application of all of this is simple. The whole scheme behind the beast in the end time is what? Peace in our time or security. And what is the picture you get out of all of these prophecies? Does that look like a real peaceful world? It will be the most violent, more people will die from hunger, starvation, pillage, slaughter and battle than any other time in history. And to remind you how many times we have lost thousands of men, don’t think of Vietnam; go back to the Revolutionary War when the south lost 300,000 men. Go back to World War II when the Russians lost 5,000,000 men. Go back to Germany and the ovens when the Jews lost 6, 000,000. Now if those slaughters, because the Bible says these slaughters will be like nothing like those that have ever happened before, we can only say that dozens, 20, 30, 40, maybe hundreds of millions of people will die in these conflicts of the future. And why? Humanly speaking why all of this conflict and death and destruction? Because men want security without God.