Gog-Magog Confab?

A question that is more and more asked of me these days is: “Will the Gog-Magog war take place before the Rapture?” It is, I think, a well-put question considering current developments surrounding Israel, the number one signal of where this generation stands on God’s Prophetic Timeline.

We have gone over a number of times that Jerusalem and Israel are becoming something akin to the burdensome stone and cup of trembling to the world, as the Prophet Zechariah put it. That nation and people, the Jews, are becoming further alienated from many of Earth’s other nations day by day – this despite that it was the vilest anti-Semite people on the planet who attacked Israel in the worst assault on Jews since the holocaust of Hitler’s time.

Supposedly, the brightest among us, intellectually –the greatest thinkers—that is, the brilliant scholars and academicians at the top universities— are inculcating their students with hatred for the Jewish Race. They do this under the guise of claiming that Israel is the occupier of Palestinian land. Thus they further fuel the lies that Hamas and other terrorist organizations of the Arabic-Muslim sort are righteous in their murdering, raping Jewish women, even young girls, and burning Jewish babies alive.

And many of the top nations and their leaderships in the West are either agreeing with the notion of illegitimate Jewish occupation or outright agreeing with the anti-Semites of Earth that Israel, not the terrorists, should be marginalized. These are saying Israel must be punished for declaring the intention to eradicate Hamas and other murderous such organizations no matter what it takes.

This American presidential administration, thus our nation’s governmental entities, demonstrate daily that America wants Israel to stop its war on Hamas and other terrorists. Our State Department issues dictates, notes of protest, and even warnings that Israel must negotiate for a cessation of fighting. They seem almost to want to spare particularly the terrorist leaders from punishment.

All the while, these same governmental sorts want the killing to continue in Ukraine while they incessantly hit up Congress to provide Ukraine with many billions of dollars for munitions. This they do even though there is absolutely no way Ukraine could ever defeat Russia’s massive military.

A negotiated peace settlement is just not on the minds of the American military-industrial complex –as President Dwight D. Eisenhower named it based upon the evil he saw within that cabal.

And with all this surrounding the number one signal that indicates that we are at the end of this age of Grace, another profound signal, in my view, arises to consider. It looks as if the current leader of the chief nation that will be involved in the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog Magog attack against Israel is up to some interesting interaction with the Jewish state’s Middle Eastern antagonists.

The following news item further explains.

i24 News – Russia has extended invitations to various Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, for discussions on the Israel-Hamas conflict and broader issues in the Middle East.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov announced the initiative on Friday, highlighting Moscow’s desire to engage with all major players in the region amid heightened tensions.

The invitation included a dozen Palestinian groups and is slated for “inter-Palestinian” talks scheduled to commence on February 29.

Bogdanov, serving as President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East, emphasized the inclusivity of the invitation, stating, “We invited all Palestinian representatives — all political forces that have their positions in different countries, including Syria, Lebanon, and other countries in the region.”

Among the invitees are Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, alongside representatives of Fatah and the broader Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The invitation comes at a critical juncture as the Israel-Hamas conflict continues to escalate, drawing international attention and concern. Russia’s proactive stance in convening discussions reflects its growing criticism of Israel and its Western allies, underscoring Moscow’s efforts to assert its influence in the region. [Source: Russia Extends Invitation to Pales0074inian Factions for Talks in Moscow – Algemeiner.com ]

According to Ezekiel’s prophecy of chapters 38 and 39, many of these peoples involved in Vladimir Putin’s invitation to this confab will be part of the Gog-Magog assault on Israel. It isn’t out of the realm of rational thought to wonder whether this or other such meetings might be convened, which might bring to Gog’s mind the evil thought that God will allow him to think.

“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: 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, 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” (Ezekiel 38:10-12).

My own much-studied view is that the Gog-Magog attack will take place sometime after the Rapture of the Church (all born-again believers in Christ for salvation). The attack will bring the Lord’s instant Vengeance upon those attacking His Chosen people and nation.

Only one-sixth of these attackers will be left when God is through with them. And I believe that Judgment will include all such anti-Semites, perhaps around the world. Such an action by God will, I’m convinced, be catastrophic on a global scale. This means, following that catastrophic action, it will not be business as usual, as Jesus foretells about the moment He will next Intervene, as He described as recorded in Luke 17:26-30.

So the Gog-Magog attack against Israel must take place sometime following Christ’s calling the Church to Himself, I believe.

Make sure you go to be with the Lord when He calls believers in the Rapture. You will be Forever Safe in His Loving Arms while God’s Righteous Judgment and Wrath fall upon the rebels of Earth.

Here again is the Way –the Only Way to go to Jesus, either through the portal of death or in the Rapture. (My phraseology of the scripture.)

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

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On Dangerous Ground :: By Jonathan Brentner

In the past several weeks, President Biden has also been at the forefront of demanding that Israel accept a two-state solution as a way of appeasing the Palestinians. In other words, he would reward Hamas’ barbarism by giving them land that rightfully belongs to Israel. Not only that, but his proposal would also give Israel’s enemies a strategic position to accomplish their true intent, which is the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Israelites who dwell there.

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Please don’t be fooled by this empty show of support for Israel. The current U.S. leadership is no friend of Israel or the Jewish people. Biden’s recommendations, if followed, would seriously degrade the security of Israel as well as the safety of its people.

The actions of the Biden Administration toward Israel place America on dangerous ground for the following reasons:

They Will bring God’s Curse Upon Our Nation

The U.S. President and Secretary of State Blinken appear determined to stop Israel from achieving an all-out victory in its war with Hamas. Though they would never admit such a thing, their proposals would provide Hamas with a tactical victory as well as a position of strength in negotiating the release of hostages that it has not already murdered.

Because Israel still represents God’s chosen people (see Romans 11:1-2), the warning of Genesis 12:3 remains in effect:

“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

The Hebrew word for “dishonors you,” or “curseth you” in the KJV, is translated in a variety of ways in the Old Testament. In this context, it signifies those who would treat Israel with contempt and dishonor. It’s the act of treating something “lightly” in the sense of placing little importance upon it.

The word for “I will curse,” speaking in regard to God’s response to those who treat His people with disdain, is different and signifies what we understand as a curse, or in this case, a judgment on those who would treat Israel with derision such as the Biden Administration.

If the words of Genesis 12:3 still apply to God’s covenant with Abraham, which He reiterated to the descendants of Jacob (Psalm 105:7-11), and they do, the actions of the Biden administration will surely bring a curse upon himself as well as upon the nation.

His Proposal to Divide God’s Land Will Surely Bring God’s Wrath

As I have written before, and include here for completeness, Scripture makes it clear that those who attempt to divide God’s Land in the last days will incur His wrath.

The prophet Joel reveals that God’s wrath against the nations at the end of the Tribulation will stem from their desire to divide “my land:”

“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and have cast lots for my people…” (Joel 3:1-3).

The actions of President Biden and his administration will surely bring God’s wrath upon the United States.

One of the key signs of judgments that will overflow the earth during the “day of the Lord” that the prophet Joel writes about is a darkening of the sun:

“The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes” (Joel 2:31).

Jesus, in describing His return to earth after the judgments of the Tribulation period, also mentioned the darkening of the sun that will happen at His Second Coming.

Although the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse is not the darkening of the sun that will happen at the end of this age, I cannot escape the thought that it symbolizes the terrors that lie ahead for planet Earth.

I also believe it’s a warning to America as it occurs in connection with Biden’s push to divide God’s land and the contempt that the U.S. president is displaying toward Israel’s leadership by seeking to impose ceasefires in Gaza that interfere with their goal of defeating Hamas.

As the April 8 eclipse is garnering unprecedented interest for such an event, it occurs to me that the Lord might be causing this rabid attention. Could this be the Lord’s way of drawing attention to His warning of judgment? I think so.

A family member from the Dallas area recently told me that hotels in the area are selling out for the event. Delta offered a flight from Austin to Detroit for the sole purpose of giving people an opportunity to view the darkening of the sun from the air, and people quickly purchased all the tickets for it.

Please know I’m not setting dates, but I cannot ignore the warning that’s happening at a time when the U.S. is not only steeped in great wickedness and government corruption that goes far beyond the limits of our imagination, but also promoting policies toward Israel that the Bible says will surely result in the outpouring of God’s wrath on any nation that behaves in such a way.

Regardless of what the April 8 solar eclipse signifies regarding our future, America truly rests on dangerous ground as its leaders treat Israel with great contempt and seek to divide God’s Land. On the other hand, would it not be foolish to regard it as a warning of what lies ahead?

-Jonathan

 

This Thing Called Iniquity

The finiteness of the human brain can be most frustrating. Infinite questions sometimes rumble around in fruitless searches and, of course, find no answers.

One such imponderable question, comprising several others that encircle that primary quandary, is: From whence comes the thing called iniquity?

Yes. There is, of course, a definition of the term, as there is for all other words within dictionaries of the world. But we don’t ask: “What” is iniquity? We are living through it! We can see it manifest in every direction we look on today’s horizon of egregious activity. We know “what” it is. What we want to know is: “From where does all that evil, that wickedness that the term defines come?”

As believers in the inerrant Word of God, the Bible, we look there to find out the only information there is about this infinite term and the question posed that befuddles the finite apparatus of human thinking –the brain. We look here for ultimate answers to life because the Word of God –the Bible—comes from the Mind of the Creator of all things. His Answers ARE the answers we desire and the ones we can absolutely take as 100% Truth.

Therefore, we have to look at the thing called iniquity through the Perfect Prism, which is the Word of God.

God, the Creator of all that is, Created everything Perfectly. God cannot make mistakes, just like He cannot tell a lie. He is Absolute Truth. His Son, Who Created all that is, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life…

So, if God can do no wrong and Creates only Perfectly, from where comes this most perplexing thing God’s Word calls iniquity? Here is where that blasphemous evil term first appears, disrupting God’s Perfection.

“Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyros, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28:12-15).

Isaiah the prophet next describes the mind-boggling moment iniquity was found in Lucifer.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isa 14:12-14).

Iniquity was possibly first found in Lucifer, maybe the Apex Angel of God’s Creation, in considering Heaven’s Angelic Order. I say “possibly” and “maybe” because there are things of the Eternal Sphere that the finite mind is neither privy to nor can grasp. I.e., the thing called iniquity could have been interjected into being earlier, and there might be an Angel above Lucifer’s Heavenly Status; we just can’t know at this time. We can know only what God’s Word illumines for now. We might know at some time in the Eternal future when we will be like Him.

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways,” Ezekiel tells in speaking to Lucifer. He was blameless, as given for the term perfect in other translations. Repeatedly, the designation perfect is translated as “without defect” (Leviticus 1:3, 10; 3:1, 6, 4:3, 23, 28, 32; 5:15, 18, etc.) The word perfect or blameless is used to describe God once, but the majority of the time, it describes humans. The perfect God created all beings, angelic and human, in perfection. God’s inerrant Word clearly shows that God created everything that was created only in Perfect order.

This Truth magnifies the thing called iniquity and its strange, inexplicable entrance into that perfect order. It is a thing beyond finite understanding or explanation.

To begin, we acknowledge God’s absolute Sovereignty. That is, He is Omnipotent and Omniscient, and, of course, Omnipresent. He answers to no one and is governed only by His Own Holy Righteousness.

However, our finite minds are equipped with fertile imagination, and I think it is not counter to God’s Holy Will to use imagination to pose a possible, even most likely, probability regarding this thing called iniquity.

He has chosen to let us know that the evil that is now saturating His once Perfect Creation came to be through the thing called iniquity. It first entered, so far as He has chosen to let us know, when it entered the perfectly created Majestic Angel Lucifer.

The manifestation of iniquitous behavior was in the form of Pride that welled within this glorious creature, who determined that he was equal or even greater than his Creator. Lucifer, then, obviously was Granted by God the Creator, the ability to choose. He was given volition.

The most likely reason for granting this, considering the matters involved from this weak, finite brain function, is that God wants His Creation –whether Angels or humankind, to have the freedom and the ability to have free will…volition. He didn’t want robots that had no choice in the matter of obeying Him.

Obedience, in God’s Order of things, equates to love. Jesus, Who is God, said to those who would follow Him: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

In Jonathan Brentner’s and my new book, HEREAFTER: It’s Far Better Than You Imagine, we scripturally document that Eternity in Heaven with God Forever will be populated only by those who love Him. There will be no more sin infection from which came into God’s Perfect Creation this mysterious evil called iniquity.

To be among that population, Perfected like those Reconciled with God the Father through God the Son, you and I must obey the instructions given by Jesus, Who is the very Word of God (John 1:1). Here is what that Word commands/instructs in order to be in Glory Forever:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 9-10).

–Terry

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Countdown to the Tribulation

As a lifelong student of Bible prophecy and a close observer of current events, I’m surprised that the Rapture has not yet happened. So many signs point to the nearness of the Tribulation and conditions described in Revelation 6:1-8 with the release of the riders of the apocalypse. However, we still wait for the time when we will meet Jesus in the air.

Even a secular organization, which goes by the name of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, recognizes the nearness of the catastrophic events of the Day of the Lord. On January 23, 2024, they reset their “Doomsday Clock” at ninety seconds to midnight.

As a young child, I loved watching rockets take off, carrying their occupants to outer space. I remember the disappointment I felt when the countdown paused or even stopped to another day.

I believe that from our limited perspective, the countdown to the Day of the Lord has paused. In spite of the myriad of signs pointing to the start of the seven-year Tribulation, it seems as though time stands still for those of us excitedly awaiting Jesus’ appearing.

For the world, the seconds on the “Doomsday Clock” remain fixed at ninety seconds.

As we wait, it’s important to keep in mind at least a couple of things:

1. The Restrainer

With each passing month, the words of 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8 become increasingly relevant to our day:

“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

The Restrainer is the Holy Spirit, and His presence within true believers is currently holding back the full expression of evil and lawlessness, which will happen when the antichrist appears on the world scene. This doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit will cease to be active on the earth after the Rapture, only that His current work of restraining the “man of lawlessness” will end.

For the past several decades, world leaders have expressed their earnest desire to establish a two-state solution to the turmoil in the Middle East. Past U.S. presidents have promoted the faulty notion that giving the Palestinians a nation of their own will establish peace. Currently, rumors abound that the Biden administration might seek a UN resolution to force such a solution upon Israel.

Other world leaders have also offered similar proposals, but there’s never been a time when both sides have agreed to any resolution, and does it seem likely to happen any time soon?

Why have all these attempts failed? 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 gives us the answer. The ultimate peace accord cannot happen until after the Rapture and the antichrist brokers the deal. Daniel 9:27 tells us that he will succeed in establishing peace for Israel, albeit for a brief time.

I suspect that Israel’s current war, which shows no sign of ending, may later play a role in Israel’s willingness to accept the covenant offered by the man of lawlessness. Perhaps he will allow the rebuilding of the third temple to make his offer all the more alluring. The Bible tells us that Israel will have this temple by the midpoint of the Tribulation period.

Although at times I am tempted to think that things cannot get any worse, the Bible reveals that conditions on the earth will rapidly deteriorate after the Rapture.

2. The Lord’s Patient Warnings Regarding the Future

A realistic examination of how the Old Testament prophets described the Day of the Lord, along with the judgments described by the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, tells us that the Tribulation period will be far more horrifying than anything the world has ever seen.

Because of the many terrors that lie ahead for planet Earth, God is giving people more time to heed the warnings of what’s coming (see 2 Peter 3:8-10). Despite the tragic silence in most pulpits, the Lord is not silent today regarding the terrors that lie on the horizon for those who don’t know Him as their Savior.

I believe God intends for the symbolism behind the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse completing an X upon the U.S. to alert America to the nearness of His judgment not only upon America but the entire world. The fact that it will pass over seven U.S. cities named Nineveh only adds to the drama unfolding this Spring.

The coming solar eclipse does not tell us when God’s wrath will arrive, but it surely points to the dire consequences that surely lie ahead if America continues on its current path.

From the Father’s perspective, the clock is still ticking toward the time when He sends Jesus to take His children out of the world. He knows the very moment when He will send His Son to bring us up to glory.

Our reality, however, resembles the “Doomsday Clock” that remains paused at ninety seconds. We know that once the second hand on this clock starts moving, it will be too late for the world. Although they don’t believe the Bible, the “doomsday” that the atomic scientists have in mind eerily resembles the Day of the Lord wrath described in Scripture.

For now, we wait in eager anticipation of His appearing to take us home (John 14:1-3; Philippians 3:20-21), knowing that the Lord is currently restraining the appearing of the antichrist as He gives more time for people to heed the warnings of doom that abound all around us.

Maranatha!

-Jonathan