Original Meaning

The Defeat of Gog (38:1–23)

THE ORACLE OPENS with a summons to Gog and his allies to arm themselves and to prepare an assault against God’s people dwelling peacefully on the mountains of Israel (38:2–9). Gog has frequently been identified with a seventh-century B.C. king of Lydia, who appears under the name gûgu in the Annals of Ashurbanipal, also known to us as Gyges in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus.2 However, in neither instance do the supposed comparisons shed much light on the biblical Gog: gûgu is merely one more in a line of minor kings who initially assisted the Assyrians, then rebelled against them, and was destroyed by the steamroller of the Assyrian army. From the perspective of the Assyrian annalist, he is a mere roadkill on the highway of empire.

Herodotus, on the other hand, seems more interested in the bizarre way in which Gyges acquired his throne than what he did after he gained it. He records in detail how Candaules, the king of Lydia, forced Gyges, who was his general, to view his queen in a state of undress in order to convince him of her outstanding beauty. The queen, when she became aware of what had transpired, was understandably distressed by her husband’s unseemly behavior. In a response appropriate for a Greek history, she then required Gyges to kill his master, which he in turn accomplished fittingly by hiding in the very same spot where he saw her naked. This is how Gyges became king of Lydia.3

Now this is material that has the elements of a splendid Shakespearean play (sex, violence, intrigue, a foreign location) but really doesn’t help us much with our understanding of Gog. In neither of the above cases does the historical figure seem to justify the language of commentators describing Gog as “a great figure of the past . . . as we might speak fearfully of a new Hitler.”4 Rather, the Gog of Ezekiel transcends historical categories and takes on mythical proportions, rather like the figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie The Terminator.5 He is the sort of person who when he drives up to your house would deliberately drive over your kid’s toy truck in the driveway, just for fun. Gog is thoroughly “bad to the bone.” You can easily imagine Ezekiel’s Gog saying “Hasta la vista, baby!” before he blows someone away.

The biblical Gog is no mere historical figure, then, but rather a fear-inducing figure of cosmic proportions; and to make matters worse, he is not alone. He is the commander-in-chief (n^eśîʾ rōʾš)6 of a coalition of forces gathered from the ends of the earth. He himself is from the land of Magog, and he rules over Meshech-Tubal. His allies include Persia, Cush, and Put (38:5), along with Gomer and Beth Togarmah (38:6). It is no coincidence that together these make up a total of seven nations, and it is significant that they are gathered from the uttermost parts of the world known to the prophet. Meshech-Tubal, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah come from the north, Put (northwest Egypt) and Cush (southern Egypt) from the south and west, while Persia is to the east of Judah.7

There is a kind of cosmic reversal of Isaiah 2:2–4 here. Here Ezekiel foresees the nations streaming towards God’s holy land in the latter days, not (as in Isaiah) to receive his law or to turn their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, but to take up their weapons in the “mother of all battles” against the Sovereign Lord and his people. But even such an act of rebellion is itself instigated by God. Though Gog and his allies are far from unwilling participants in the coming conflict, yet the controlling force in all this is the Lord, who directs them by “hooks in your jaws” (Ezek. 38:4).

Once the unholy alliance has been prepared by God, he will summon them against his restored people at a time of his own choosing. Israel is depicted in terms borrowed from Ezekiel 34–37: They have been regathered from the nations to the mountains of Israel; now they live in safety (38:8), a peaceful, unsuspecting, and undefended people (38:11), grown rich in livestock and goods (38:12). They are dwelling “at the center of the land [earth]” (38:12), a description that is theological rather than geographical. Literally, they are dwelling “at the navel of the earth,” the location that had expressed Jerusalem’s election in 5:5. This position at the center of God’s favor, which Jerusalem had forfeited through her sin, has now been restored to the land.8

This description of the state of God’s people underlines the motives of the evil alliance. They find no justification for their assault in Israel’s behavior. Israel is at rest, trusting in the Lord, not in alliances with foreign nations. In that trust she is prospering, experiencing the blessings of covenant faithfulness. Yet trust in the Lord does not eliminate the possibility of conflict. The ungodly, who dwell in “the far north” (38:6, 15; 39:2),9 will cast greedy eyes in Israel’s direction, encouraged by the traders from east and west (38:13), and will advance against them like an overshadowing cloud (38:9, 16).

But in spite of all his planning and preparation, Gog has fundamentally misread the match-up. It is not a matter, as he supposes, of his vast and well-equipped army ranged against a defenseless nation (38:14–16). Rather, by tangling with Israel Gog is taking on Israel’s God; this is “my people” and “my land” that he is assaulting. The relationship between God, his people, and his land has been restored, and such an assault on the Lord’s name will not pass unchallenged. Indeed, the only reason for Gog’s being permitted to come—or, to put it positively as the text does, the reason for which Gog and his allies are brought against Israel—is so that the Lord may demonstrate his greatness and his holiness in defeating this monstrous alliance (38:16). As in the days of Pharaoh, Gog will serve as an object lesson for the nations of the Lord’s power and of his love for his people.

Therefore, the judgment of God falls on Gog in Ezek. 38:17–22. The question of verse 17, “Are you . . . the one I spoke of in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel?” asks whether Gog is the “foe from the north” depicted in passages such as Jeremiah 4–6. The answer to that question has been variously rendered. The NIV, along with many commentators, clearly presupposes the positive answer: “Yes, you are.”10 However, the form of the Hebrew question is entirely open and can be equally easily answered, “No, you are not!”11 Had Gog been the prophesied “foe from the north,” he would have been coming at the Lord’s commissioning to bring judgment on his faithless people. Nothing and no one would have been able to stand against him. But this foe, though geographically from the north, is coming not to bring judgment but to be judged. The prophecies of Jeremiah 4–6 have already found their fulfillment in the coming of the Babylonians; never again will God deal with his people in that way.

Instead, the judgments that earlier fell on his people now fall on their enemies. God’s hot anger, zeal, and fiery wrath are all emotions of which Israel has felt the weight in the earlier chapters of Ezekiel. Now these same feelings are turned against Gog (Ezek. 38:18–19). The divine warrior will let loose a mighty earthquake, which will cause all creatures to tremble in his presence (38:19–20). The sword, plague, bloodshed, torrential rain, hail, burning sulfur—judgments, most of which were experienced first by Israel—are now experienced by her enemies (38:21–22). Now God will reveal his power and holiness to the nations not by the destruction of his unholy people but by the protection of his restored people (38:23).

Bridging Contexts

IDENTIFICATIONS THROUGHOUT HISTORY. Perhaps few Old Testament passages have seen so many attempts to interpret them in the light of current events as Ezekiel 38–39. This is hardly a new phenomenon. The church father Ambrose, writing in the late fourth century, confidently identified Gog as the Goths.14 In the seventh century, Gog and Magog were the Arab armies that threatened the Holy Land.15 By the thirteenth century, Gog had become a cipher for the Mongol hordes from the East.16 William Greenhill, writing in the seventeenth century, records the opinion of some contemporaries who identified Gog as the Roman emperor, the Pope, or the Turks.17 In the nineteenth century, against the background of the tensions in Asia Minor that culminated in the Crimean War, Wilhelm Gesenius identified Rosh as Russia.18 This view was subsequently popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible, along with the idea taken from other sources that “Meshech” and “Tubal” are the Russian cities of Moscow and Tobolsk.19 During the First World War, Arno Gaebelein argued that Gomer was Germany.20

More recently, in response to the rise of Communism, these ideas have become the staples of popular dispensational end-times literature, to which has in some cases been added the contemporary threat of the Red Chinese, usually identified as “the kings from the East” in Revelation 16:12.21 With its vivid imagery and pictorial language, apocalyptic (or more precisely, proto-apocalyptic) literature such as Ezekiel 38–39 lends itself to a flexible application to whatever the contemporary dangers to world peace are perceived to be. In a world of much tribulation, there will always be a plausible explanation of why these times in particular fit the description of the biblical “end times.”

There are numerous factual flaws in these identifications. In the first place, the earliest attestation of the name “Rus” (Russia) dates back to the mid-ninth century A.D. and is thought to have been brought to the area around Kiev by the Vikings.22 It is etymologically unrelated to the Hebrew term, and modern lexicons have universally rejected Gesenius’s claim.23 Nor can Meshech and Tubal be linked with Moscow and Tobolsk. Rather, they are to be linked with the Mushku and Tabal peoples of central and eastern Anatolia, who are well known in cuneiform texts from the first half of the first millennium B.C.24

Gomer is similarly known to us from cuneiform texts as the warlike gimirrai (known from Greek sources as “Cimmerians”). This people apparently originated in the Crimea, but were pushed southward across the Caucasus by the Scythians at the end of the eighth century B.C.25 Though the Babylonian Talmud does identify Gomer as the area of “Germania” (or “Kermania”),26 the Targum Neofiti on Genesis 10:2 rather identifies Germania as the district of Magog! In addition, although Gomer may etymologically be related equally well to the Welsh (cymri) as to the proto-Germanic tribes,27 yet one may observe that the Welsh have not typically played a significant role in the descriptions of the last days.

However, even if correct identifications were to be made on the basis of sound linguistic and archaeological data, attempts to isolate particular nations as “Israel’s last enemies” fly in the face of what the text is saying. The point of Ezekiel 38–39 is not that at some distant point in future history these particular nations will oppose Israel, while others (America? Britain?) will rally to her aid. Rather, these seven nations from the ends of the earth, from all four points of the compass, represent symbolically a supreme attempt by the united forces of evil to crush the peace of God’s people. This, not coincidentally, is the interpretation given to “Gog and Magog” in Revelation 20:8: They represent “the nations in the four corners of the earth,” whom Satan gathers for the final battle against God’s people, the city he loves.28 Their defeat in Revelation is the prerequisite for the establishment of the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city of Revelation 21, which itself has many points of contact with Ezekiel’s visionary temple in Ezekiel 40–48.

Ezekiel 38–39 in biblical context. The key to understanding what Ezekiel 38–39 are about—both for its original hearers and for us—lies in recognizing whereabouts in the book of Ezekiel we are at this point. The first twenty-four chapters of Ezekiel, after a brief record of the initial call of the prophet, prophesy an unmitigated pronouncement of judgment on God’s people and city. Jerusalem and her inhabitants are finished because of their idolatry and other sins. The Lord has abandoned his people, and it is only a matter of time before they experience the full outpouring of his wrath through the Babylonians.

Ezekiel 25–32 then gives a series of oracles against the foreign nations, pronouncing judgment on those who participated or delighted in Israel’s downfall. The presence of these oracles affirms that God has not turned his back on his people utterly. He has not switched sides and gone over to her enemies. The promise to Abraham given in Genesis 12:3, that “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse,” is still in effect—at least, the second half of the promise.

Then Ezekiel 33 records the turning point in the fortunes of God’s people when the news of Jerusalem’s fall comes to the prophet. Now God’s wrath has been satisfied and there is a prospect of a new beginning. That new beginning is outlined in terms of a restoration of the leadership of the people (the shepherds, ch. 34), the land itself (35:1–36:15), and the people who indwell the land (chs. 36–37), culminating in the glorious statements of Ezek. 37:24–28:

My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there 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. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.

But there is a potential problem at this point. Perhaps Israel can be restored and returned to her own land. But what happens then? What is to say that the whole weary cycle of sin and judgment in the shape of an invading army will not begin all over again, as in the days of the book of Judges? It is this question that Ezekiel 38–39 seeks to answer. The purpose of the oracle against Gog becomes clear in 39:21–29; it is intended as a word of reassurance to Israel 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). Though trials of all kinds, even the worst imaginable kind, may and will come, they will do so only under God’s good and sovereign hand.

The symbolism in Ezekiel 38–39. In fact, even identifying Ezekiel 38–39 as “proto-apocalyptic” may be leading us down the wrong interpretative path. For though these two chapters share a number of features with later apocalyptic, such as symbolism and a schematic view of history, they also have a great deal in common with nonapocalyptic writings. It is especially close thematically to the psalms of Zion’s security, where the nations gather together against Jerusalem, only to be repulsed by the Lord (Ps. 2; 46; 48; 76).29

The common motif of the attack by the nations against the Lord’s dwelling place, the center of the earth, has been transferred by the prophet from Jerusalem itself to the mountains of Israel. This fits with his avoidance of the name of Jerusalem in his prophecies of restoration: Even the city of Ezekiel 48 bears a different name, while the mountains of Israel are for Ezekiel the heart of the Promised Land. The timeless present of the psalm has been transposed to the indefinite future of “after many days” (38:8), but the essential message of the psalmist remains unchanged. The conclusion of Psalm 46 sums up Ezekiel 38–39 equally well:

Come and see the works of the LORD,

the desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;

he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,

he burns the shields with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

The LORD Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Ps. 46:8–11)

The significance in this correlation lies in the fact that the “last battle,” as depicted in Ezekiel 38–39, is not qualitatively different from the everyday battles that face us. The “mother of all battles” differs only in terms of size from the ongoing battles that we as believers face from day to day, not in terms of kind. Just as “the Antichrist” is merely the last and greatest in a constant stream of “antichrists” (1 John 2:18), so also Gog and his foul friends who seek to destroy the restored Israel are simply the ultimate expression of a continual struggle in which Satan seeks to destroy the people of God (cf. Rev. 12:17).

Therefore, the message of Ezekiel 38–39 is not a coded message for those who live in “the last days,”30 who by carefully unlocking its secrets will be able to determine the symbolic identity of the key participants in the final struggle. Rather, 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.

The ultimate problem with the approach to the Bible that reads Ezekiel 38–39 alongside the morning newspaper in an attempt to correlate the events described in the two documents is that it assumes that unless we are living in the end times, these passages have nothing to say to us. In fact, whether or not these happen to be the final days of God’s plan for the world, Ezekiel 38–39 addresses believers with a powerful message of hope. As we noted at the outset of this section, it functions in a thematically similar way to the empty tomb in the New Testament: It is God’s ultimate demonstration of power and care for his people in the face of the worst possible scenario. In the light of the resurrection of Christ, why should we fear the more everyday challenges that life throws at us? Even death cannot separate us from such love.

Contemporary Significance

CONTEMPORARY DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS. As we approach the end of the second millennium A.D., secular “apocalypses” abound. In our time, we see growing numbers of doomsday scenarios propounded, based around environmental or other perceived hazards to the future of life on planet earth. We worry about global warming and El Niño, about asteroids colliding with the earth, or about political instability in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. We fear the possibility of a holocaust created by nuclear or bacteriological warfare. As a reflex of our fears, we dream up cataclysmic adventures on the big screen, in which world peace and “life as we know it” is dramatically threatened, and then against all odds finally saved.31

This theme is treated in classic form in the movies The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day.32 In these popular films, Skynet, a computerized defense system in the “Star Wars” mold, reaches self-awareness and in response to attempts by humans to power it down, triggers a nuclear holocaust. Human resistance against the autonomous machines is led by the feisty messianic figure, John Connor (whose initials are hardly coincidental).33 In an effort at a preemptive strike, the Skynet sends a mechanical assassin, one of the seemingly all-powerful terminators, back from the future to terminate his mother’s life before his birth. Having failed with its initial attempt, in the sequel the system makes a second attempt on John Connor’s life when he is a young adolescent.

Such popular apocalyptic scenarios have been around for a while. Over a century ago, in The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells painted a chilling picture of an invasion of a hostile superior life-form from Mars, against which all human military technology was powerless, instantly vaporized by their “heat ray.” This life-form fed on human blood and began a program of world domination, which would inevitably (it appeared) mean the end of any recognizable human civilization. Only the intervention of common bacteria, against which the advanced Martians had long ceased to require immunity, prevented the total massacre of the human race.

Wells was ahead of his time, out of step with the general optimism of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Probably the first significant chink in the armor of a near-universal hope of invincible human progress occurred on April 15, 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic. With its descent into the icy depths of the North Atlantic, it took the lives of 1,513 people and created a fault line in the belief of unstoppable progress. The First World War and the depression that followed crushed forever the naive optimism of the previous generation. Together, those events brought us into the era in which we now live, which W. H. Auden dubbed the “Age of Anxiety.”34 Since then, we have lived in the shadow of the end of the world.

Of course, as we noted above, we are by no means the first generation to have this experience. In the fifth century, when the Goths sacked Rome, those who lived through the event felt as if it was the end of the world. Similar threats to “life as we know it” in medieval Europe came from the Moors in the early Middle Ages and the Mongols in the late Middle Ages, and marked out those time periods also as ones of great anxiety. Throughout the course of human history the end of the world has been regularly threatened and has occasionally happened. To date, life goes on.

Living in the shadow of the end of the world. It is the habit of those who live in the shadow of the end of the world, or whose world seems to be ending, to tell themselves stories. These stories, in general, focus on how the end of the world is to be avoided. In The War of the Worlds, the final cataclysm is averted unexpectedly, almost accidentally (from a human perspective), through the protective forces of Nature, represented by the all-powerful microbes. In contrast, in the Terminator movies human ingenuity and determination triumph over brute strength, and thus humanity is saved.

Christians naturally, and rightly, respond to the general atmosphere of end-of-the-world anxieties by turning from the world’s stories to God’s stories. At times like this, many turn to the apocalyptic literature of the Scriptures, such as Ezekiel 38–39 or the books of Daniel and Revelation, seeking an infallible word from the Lord. But what do you do with these stories? Many contemporary Christians treat these passages as checklists on the road to Armageddon, providing a countdown on the road to the end of the world. However, as we have shown above, this is not how the passage was intended to be read. Rather, it is a dramatic statement of the central truth that no matter what the forces of evil may throw at God’s people, in the final analysis God’s purpose and victory stand secure. For all Gog’s bravado, ultimately it is God who says, “Go ahead; make my day!”

Do you see how comforting this truth is for all of us? Christians have, historically, suffered a great deal for their faith. From the time of Nero, when Christians were dipped in pitch and set alight to illumine the emperor’s pleasure gardens, down to the present day, when believers continue to be tortured and killed for their faith in Sudan and elsewhere, the spiritual forces of opposition are real. Often those forces are institutional rather than individual, an organized and orchestrated attempt to destroy the church. For those enduring such times of persecution, Ezekiel 38–39 provides a powerful message of hope.

(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. Gog’s free will is the free will of a shackled lion. If you offer a lion a choice between a fresh green salad and a juicy piece of raw meat, he will choose the latter every time, without compulsion; it is his nature to eat raw meat. But the shackled lion only gets to eat raw meat when his keeper chooses to allow him to.

This is a perspective on persecution and martyrdom that we are not used to thinking about. We tend to assume that martyrdom is an unfortunate but necessary by-product of human free will, a sad fact of life in some parts of the world, but a sign that the world is out of order. Our problem is that we live in a dangerous world populated by lions roaming on the loose, so we tend to think. Not so. The Bible tells us that the lions are real, but they are shackled, or rather, to change the image slightly, they are leashed. They can assault Christians only whenever and wherever God allows them to exercise their natural appetites. What this means is that martyrdom is not merely an occasional abnormality in the church’s existence with evangelistic possibilities; it is, at times, nothing less than the will of God for his church.

In other words, God himself may bring tribulation on his people, just as he brings Gog. The reason for that apparently strange fact is that the blood of the martyrs is not merely the seed of the church, but is a sign of the kingdom. It is not merely by our love that the world will know that Christians are Christ’s disciples, but by our blood. The disciples are not greater than their master, who was brutally beaten and savagely murdered on a cruel cross. Jesus himself said:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:34–35)

Jesus was not exaggerating or using hyperbole here. He meant exactly what he said. Martyrdom is a central part of God’s strategy for bringing glory to himself through the church.

Thus, in Revelation 6:10, the martyrs under the altar cry out, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” You might expect that the answer given to their question would be: “Until the salvation of the full number of the elect. There must be more time for the evangelization of the world.” Indeed, that is not a wrong answer; as Peter says concerning the Second Coming, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). But this is not the answer given to the martyred saints: They are told to wait until the full number of martyrs have been killed.

Our view of the world is turned on its head. Our automatic assumption is that God’s will for us is peace and prosperity, at least if we are being good Christians, and that the obedient church should grow and prosper just like any well-run business. But we are wrong. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life . . . but that wonderful plan might mean torture and death for the faith, or simply a life that seems, from the world’s perspective, “wasted” (“lost,” in Jesus’ terms). Ezekiel 38–39 reminds us that even the restored, renewed people of God can expect tribulation, not because the world is out of control but precisely because the world is in God’s control; for when God’s people cling to him in their darkest hour, against all odds, it brings him glory. God’s glory is the primary goal of history, not our happiness and comfort.

This focus requires us always to lift our eyes above the human plane of activity to the divine. When we stay on the human level in our consideration of our sufferings and the sufferings of others, we end up like Job’s friends, searching for some hidden reason within us for the suffering. Philip Yancey lists some of the reasons people come up with:

• God is trying to teach you something. You should feel privileged, not bitter, about your opportunity to lean on him in faith.

• Meditate on the blessings you still enjoy—at least you are still alive. Are you a fair-weather believer?

• You are under-going a training regimen, a chance to exercise new muscles of faith. Don’t worry—God will not test you beyond your endurance.

• Don’t complain so loudly! You will forfeit this opportunity to demonstrate your faithfulness to unbelievers.

• Someone is always worse off than you. Give thanks despite your circumstances.35

The problem is that each of these approaches seeks to find some good that the suffering will accomplish within us or within our circle of friends and acquaintances. In the providence of God, that may be the case. But it may not. We are also the players in a cosmic drama acted out before the heavenly hosts. In that play, “every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job’s reverberates throughout the universe.”36 God himself may bring tribulation into our life to bring himself glory through our obedient submission, following in the footsteps of our Master.

(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 Psalm 2, 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 array of corpses, scattered on the face of the earth. Their weaponry is useless against God’s cosmic arsenal of fire and earthquake, hailstones and burning sulfur (Ezek. 38:19–22). Those who came to plunder will end up themselves plundered. Once again adopting the language of Psalm 2, Gog will be terrified in God’s wrath, dashed in pieces like pottery, and destroyed along the way. It is foolishness to oppose God, and all who do so will come to a sticky end. 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 (Heb. 10:27). We need to take seriously his admonition: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31).

Do we fathom the significance of this reality for our neighbors, coworkers, and relatives who do not know Christ? In her article “A Stone Cold Fact,” Joni Eareckson Tada presses us to see in concrete terms what this means:

Lord, do you mean my third-grade teacher? The women who run the day-care center where I take my child? My mailman? My housekeeper? The lady who teaches the quilting class down the street? The bank teller who’s always telling me jokes? If these people don’t know Jesus, they won’t “rise to live.”37

(4) God’s victory means the ultimate security of those who trust in him. In Ezekiel 38–39, Israel does not have to lift a finger in her own defense. Those who take refuge in the Lord find blessing and security (Ps. 2:12); 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. You are the apple of his eye, as Zechariah 2 expresses it. As the apostle Paul put it: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31–32). Your confidence rests in this: that Almighty God has committed himself to those who trust in him and he will never give them up. Paul reminds us in another place: “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Tim. 1:12). The God who will defeat the evil empire of Gog can take care of you also.

The central point. This last point is, it seems to me, the central thrust of Ezekiel 38–39, as the final verses of chapter 39 make clear. Why was Ezekiel 38–39 good news for Ezekiel’s original audience? Because it made clear the fact that the events of 586 B.C. could never be repeated. Israel had once because of her sin so polluted the land that it had become totally unfit for divine habitation (39:23). But when God reverses that situation and regathers his people, he will pour out his Spirit in the same measure as he once poured out his wrath (39:29). This will bring about a radical change in the hearts of his people and in the security of his presence with them, such that he will never again hide his face from them. Though tribulations, such as the assault by Gog, will continue, they will no longer be marks of God’s wrath but opportunities for God to uncover his power to the world.

Why is Ezekiel 38–39 good news for us? It is because this is precisely the relationship with God in which we, as Christians, stand. Once we too were objects of God’s wrath because of our sins (Eph. 2:2–3). Our hearts were too polluted to receive his presence. But now, because of the work of Christ on the cross, we too have been gathered into God’s people. We are no longer under condemnation, but have received the Spirit, by whom we have been adopted into God’s family. Therefore, we have the settled assurance that God will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5–6). Troubles may and will come. No matter where we are on God’s “prophetic timetable,” that reality remains unchanged. But to us as Christians, troubles come now not as visitations of God’s wrath on us but as opportunities for God to uncover his power to the world.

There are two ways in which God may uncover his power to the world in our situation of distress. (1) That power may be uncovered by means of a remarkable deliverance, whereby we are rescued from the midst of our trials, as when Daniel was kept safe in the lions’ den or Peter was set free from prison. In that case, we will have the testimony that will launch a thousand books.

(2) But that is not the only way in which God reveals his existence and power in the world. In other cases, God’s power may be uncovered by enabling us to withstand tribulation firmly until the end, as when Stephen was given a vision of the ascended Jesus to strengthen him as the murderous stones pounded his body. Either way—whether we are delivered from our trials or endure suffering to the end for the sake of King Jesus—we find out for ourselves and demonstrate to the world and to the cosmic hosts the truth of the Lord’s statement: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).