Israel.

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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I would not connect the biblical Israel with the modern state. Just because they share the same name, and the majority of the populace share cultural ties to the ancient kingdom, does not really give them the same legitimacy. If we were to believe the Scriptures, then God ended the period of the Israelite kingdom during the Destruction of Jerusalem and Herod's Temple. It was a time of a complete end of that era and people. Besides this point, most of the population is not very religious, and if religious, still rebelling against Jesus Christ, therefore, they would be persecuted, not for their covenant with God, which has passed away, but because they have caused political turmoil with their recent presence in the region in the last century.

The fall of Jersualem was for their rebellion, if we take Jesus at his words, therefore, how then would they be blessed now if they remain in rebellion?

Laodicean60 said:

Another question. How do we reconcile the blessing to Abraham?

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Do you mean possessing the land from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt? 1 Kings 4:21 fulfilled it.

Laodicean60 said:

The promise to Abraham.
Gen 12:3
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

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It was fulfilled in Jesus:

"And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'" — Galatians 3:8

"Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ." — Galatians 3:16

Laodicean60 said:

Thank You.

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I added another verse to my edited reply. You're welcome!

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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The Gog and Magog war happens after the 1000 year reign of Jesus (the kingdom of God). When satan is released from the bottomless pit. This current war Israel is in has nothing to do with Gog and Magog.

Revelation
Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Ezekiel 38

The Abraham Accords were the beginning of peace between Israel and the Arab nations. It was drawn up and agreed
upon during the Trump administration which would've finally brought peace between Israel and the Arab nations. When Joe Biden got elected as president, he let the Abraham Accords go by the wayside, as he would've had to give credit to Trump if it had gone through. Iran is totally against the Abraham Accords as it's between Israel and the Sunni Arab nations. Iran is Shiite and has disrupted the process in their favor, by supplying Hamas with weapons and encouraged them to attack Israel on October 7, 2023.

Hamas' goal is to kill Jews, and put an end to Israel. They promise that there will be many more October 7ths, in the
future. Israel has no choice but to wage war against Hamas, and being that Hamas embeds themselves in the civilian populations of Gaza, many innocent people will be killed as a result. People die in war, and this is what it is.

The recent pro-Palestine protest would be akin to Americans protesting against the bombing of Nazi Germany in 1945.
No one back then yelled, "we support the German people, just not the Nazis." The college protests were similar in that
those yelling for support for the Palestinians, never mention the attack October 7th by Hamas, or protest against Iran supplying them with weapons. Iran also supplies Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iraq with weapons which are used against US troops.

As long as Hamas exist and Iran keeps supplying them with weapons, there will always be war in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Keep in mind that the Arabs in Israel rejected a two-state solution back in 1948 and have rejected this proposal ever since.

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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I don't believe Jesus will come back due specifically to events in the Nation/State of Israel...

However I do believe we will be judged by our actions. Did we do what was right before God or did we sin?

I think we are just gone as a nation... there's no right and wrong anymore. The only time there is is when it's political.

Now people should be figuring out their real moral compass and stand with that. If we are Christian it will be God's path.

Laodicean60 said:

Doesn't the Jews finally realize that they crucified the Messiah when the antichrist proclaims himself in the temple?

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The 3rd temple is the one not built by human hands...

"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." Ephesians 2:19-22

The Jews are in the same period the rest of us are, being saved individuay.

The gates of Hell cannot conquer this Temple Christ is building. Never again can any antichrist sit in it.

Remember those verses about signs that could decieve the elect, if it were possible: well a physical temple would just be a deception, or at least a point of deception.

I stand with the Jews because we have the same worldview and the same roots of faith... And people really do want to kill them rather irrationally at times.. I also stand just as strongly with my Christian brethren around the world as well, especially when people want to kill them rather irrationally.

We should be reflecting Christ in our actions, regardless.

And no, I don't care if it's reciprocated because my Judge and my Example is Christ... Not anyone else.

Laodicean60 said:

The way Ezekiel 39 reads is that there is what might be a nuclear war prior to the second coming. After that war, Israel will recognize and call out to the messiah.

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Gog and Magog happen at the very end of the 1000 year rule of Jesus which is a time of peace. Only when satan is released does satan provoke an up rising. So i am sure there are no nuclear weapons even being produced during Jesus' rule. There may not even be guns manufactured. All these weapons were part of the age of satan.

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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In both Ezekiel’s prophecies and John’s description of the end of sin, Gog and Magog are symbols of the forces of Satan opposed to God and His people. They picture a battle and war between good and evil, sin and righteousness, God and Satan. And that is the main point in regards to Gog and Magog based on what the Bible says. It is the final battle of good verses evil on planet earth between God and satan (Gog & Magog)

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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Largely impossible to say with any certainty.

Interpreting Old Testament Prophecy is very difficult. I encourage you to consider this point and to look into what I'm about to say, to see if it is true and what you think of it.

Go through the New Testament and note every place where the New Testament authors say that something fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy. Ask yourself the following question "If I read that OT prophecy without knowing in advance what it meant, because the New Testament tells me what it meant... would I have ever in a million years guessed that this is how it would be fulfilled?"

Personally, reading the New Testament and seeing how the authors of the New Testament, under the inspiration of God, understood Old Testament prophecy, showed me that the way most people today look at it is highly unlikely to be accurate.

Laodicean60 said:

Doesn't the Jews finally realize that they crucified the Messiah when the antichrist proclaims himself in the temple?

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Not all Jews, just the hierarchy of the Jerusalem Temple, during Christ time on earth.

Jesus along with the 12 Apostles and the first Christians of the Early Church were all Jewish.

Laodicean60 said:

For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.

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Gog and Magog, in the Old Testament, is probably representative of "The Nations" in a broad sense, i.e. the nations hostile to ancient Israel, and probably not a reference to real places. In the Apocalypse John borrows a lot of language from the apocalyptic and prophetic literature of the Old Testament, including the Gog and Magog language.

Israel, the biblical nation described in the Old Testament, doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for a long time. Just because a modern country calls itself "Israel" doesn't make it so. There's simply no reason to connect ancient prophetic statements in Holy Scripture with the modern country called "Israel" today.

When St. John wrote the Apocalypse he was addressing contemporary circumstances facing the Church at the end of the first century, most likely during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). The early Church Historian Eusebius of Caesarea tells us that the emperors after Nero were generally content to not bother the Church, and so Vespasian and Titus left Christians alone; but that when Domitian took power he eventually started persecution up again, which hadn't happened since Nero (when many of the early leaders of the Church, like Paul and Peter, were martyred). Thus, under Domitian's reign, troubles began again for Christians. John writes that he was a prisoner on the island of Patmos, exiled there on account of his Christian witness, he addresses the Apocalypse to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor in what is now south-western Turkey.

It's not altogether clear which John wrote the Apocalypse, and there is disagreement in early Christian witness about how many Johns there were. The earliest witnesses attest two Johns: John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, and attribute the Apocalypse to John the Presbyter (who is also said to have written the Epistles of John). Later Christian witnesses conflate these two as being one and the same, and John the Presbyter and John the Apostle are regarded as the same person. Thus attributing to John the Apostle authorship of the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.

Regardless, the John who wrote the Apocalypse was believed to be a central leader among the Asian churches, based in Ephesus. And thus John had been exiled from Ephesus to Patmos, just off the coast of Asia. There he received his apocalyptic visions, and wrote them down as a letter of Apocalypse (Revelation) from Jesus to the seven churches in Asia (see Revelation 1:4-20)

The context, therefore, of the entire work is the current circumstances of the late 1st century Church under the oppression of Roman power. The mini-epistles contained in Revelation chapters 2-3 address more specific content, for example the trouble with certain heretics, or the problem of spiritual laziness. Jesus accuses the Laodicaeans of having grown comfortable in their affluence and thus they had become useless; but even to the Ephesians Jesus accuses them of having forsaken their first love..

The rest of the text contains the visions which John received, written in the classic Jewish apocalyptic style. There's a point to the text beyond the graphic imagery of monstrous beasts and plagues, and that's the Victory of Christ as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world over death, hell, and the devil. And that Jesus' people have victory and overcome by trusting in Him--and thus whatever the world throws at the Church cannot overcome the Church, because ultimately the Church overcomes through Christ her Lord. It is a Lamb who has conquered and is seated on the Throne. In the end, it is not the power of princes and emperors, but the power of Christ the Lamb who has Conquered, which wins. In the long arm of history, God is Victorious, because Christ has Conquered, and all the powers of this fallen age shall become nothing, "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15) this is why remaining faithful to Christ and not selling oneself over to the power of the kingdoms of this world is stressed.

All manner of problems arise if we try to read the Apocalypse as a future-predicting book, which frequently leads us away from the central themes of the text: Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, He has Conquered, and all who trust and abide in Him are also conquerors.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

Gog and Magog, in the Old Testament, is probably representative of "The Nations" in a broad sense, i.e. the nations hostile to ancient Israel, and probably not a reference to real places. In the Apocalypse John borrows a lot of language from the apocalyptic and prophetic literature of the Old Testament, including the Gog and Magog language.

Israel, the biblical nation described in the Old Testament, doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for a long time. Just because a modern country calls itself "Israel" doesn't make it so. There's simply no reason to connect ancient prophetic statements in Holy Scripture with the modern country called "Israel" today.

When St. John wrote the Apocalypse he was addressing contemporary circumstances facing the Church at the end of the first century, most likely during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). The early Church Historian Eusebius of Caesarea tells us that the emperors after Nero were generally content to not bother the Church, and so Vespasian and Titus left Christians alone; but that when Domitian took power he eventually started persecution up again, which hadn't happened since Nero (when many of the early leaders of the Church, like Paul and Peter, were martyred). Thus, under Domitian's reign, troubles began again for Christians. John writes that he was a prisoner on the island of Patmos, exiled there on account of his Christian witness, he addresses the Apocalypse to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor in what is now south-western Turkey.

It's not altogether clear which John wrote the Apocalypse, and there is disagreement in early Christian witness about how many Johns there were. The earliest witnesses attest two Johns: John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, and attribute the Apocalypse to John the Presbyter (who is also said to have written the Epistles of John). Later Christian witnesses conflate these two as being one and the same, and John the Presbyter and John the Apostle are regarded as the same person. Thus attributing to John the Apostle authorship of the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.

Regardless, the John who wrote the Apocalypse was believed to be a central leader among the Asian churches, based in Ephesus. And thus John had been exiled from Ephesus to Patmos, just off the coast of Asia. There he received his apocalyptic visions, and wrote them down as a letter of Apocalypse (Revelation) from Jesus to the seven churches in Asia (see Revelation 1:4-20)

The context, therefore, of the entire work is the current circumstances of the late 1st century Church under the oppression of Roman power. The mini-epistles contained in Revelation chapters 2-3 address more specific content, for example the trouble with certain heretics, or the problem of spiritual laziness. Jesus accuses the Laodicaeans of having grown comfortable in their affluence and thus they had become useless; but even to the Ephesians Jesus accuses them of having forsaken their first love..

The rest of the text contains the visions which John received, written in the classic Jewish apocalyptic style. There's a point to the text beyond the graphic imagery of monstrous beasts and plagues, and that's the Victory of Christ as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world over death, hell, and the devil. And that Jesus' people have victory and overcome by trusting in Him--and thus whatever the world throws at the Church cannot overcome the Church, because ultimately the Church overcomes through Christ her Lord. It is a Lamb who has conquered and is seated on the Throne. In the end, it is not the power of princes and emperors, but the power of Christ the Lamb who has Conquered, which wins. In the long arm of history, God is Victorious, because Christ has Conquered, and all the powers of this fallen age shall become nothing, "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15) this is why remaining faithful to Christ and not selling oneself over to the power of the kingdoms of this world is stressed.

All manner of problems arise if we try to read the Apocalypse as a future-predicting book, which frequently leads us away from the central themes of the text: Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, He has Conquered, and all who trust and abide in Him are also conquerors.

-CryptoLutheran

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Excellent post. In the Coptic Orthodox tradition, which is relevant to this post as we are the only Church that I know of to read the Apocalypse of St. John in its entirety as part of our Holy Week services, what I believe you have called the "mini-epistles" above are interspersed with the people's refrain of "He who has an ear let him hear / what the Spirit says unto the churches", thereby making the text not a future-predicting book, but what I suppose you could call a 'present-indicting' book. In other words: Listen! This is not just for the churches of Asia in the first century, but for all of us right now!

I know I'm biased, but I think that's a much more reasonable and effective way to understand and respond to the book, rather than trying to use it to predict future events. Or, rather, it is already enough that it is seen as predicting the end, in a way, but to try to attach specific events to its words is a fool's errand. Our Lord tells us that we will know not the time, and that ought to be enough for us to stay vigilant.