(Continuation of 3.1 --The invasion into Israel of the nations from the north with its allies).

Also Psalm 83:5-8 refers to Arab countries that always seek to destroy Israel and therefore it can be assumed that they will also accompany the northern countries in their campaign against Israel. There we read:” All of them fully agree in their plans against you,

and among them are Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagrites; Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia and Phoenicia.

Even Assyria has joined forces with Moab and Ammon”.

We can say that no other biblical text mentions the simultaneous alliance of all nations mentioned in this Psalm. Therefore it can be assumed that the psalm does not refer to a particular historical fact, but describes a typical situation, as the people of God, throughout its history, have had to endure the attacks of their enemies

.... But, the northern countries and their allies are not going to win but will be punished as we read in verses 21 and 22 of Ezekiel 38:

“I will terrify Gog with all sorts of calamities. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. His men will turn their swords against one another.

I will punish him with disease and bloodshed. Torrents of rain and hail, together with fire and sulfur, will pour down on him and his army and on the many nations that are on his side”.

In addition, in Ezekiel 39: 11-15 we read: “The Lord said, “When all this happens, I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, in Travelers' Valley, east of the Dead Sea.  Gog and all his army will be buried there, and the valley will be called ‘The Valley of Gog's Army.’ It will take the Israelites seven months to bury all the corpses and make the land clean again. Everyone in the land will help bury them, and they will be honored for this on the day of my victory. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. After the seven months are over, men will be chosen to travel through the land in order to find and bury those bodies  remaining on the ground, so that they can make the land clean. As they go up and down the country, every time they find a human bone, they will put a marker beside it so that the gravediggers can come and bury it in the Valley of Gog's Army”.

We see here a very accurate description where God Himself explains the intensity of the efforts of the Israelites to clean the country. There is even some irony when it says:" I will give Gog a burial ground there in Israel, in Travelers' Valley ....” It is impressive to see that the Israelites need seven months to bury their enemies and leave the country clean.

Question: ¿Could this be the time, the bible refers to in Genesis 15 verses 18 – 21, when it says: “Then and there the Lord made a covenant with Abram. He said, “I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River,  including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”?  This was God’s covenant with Abraham, about 4000 years ago and this covenant is still alive.  

3- THE WARS OF THE NATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL AFTER 1967.

The warfare of the many nations that will organize themselves to fight against Israel does not consist of only one battle, but a campaign of three successive battles:

3.1 ---The invasion into Israel of the nations from the north with

          its allies.

We will take as reference that what is written in Ezekiel 38: 1-6: “The Lord spoke to me.   “Mortal man,” he said, “denounce Gog, chief ruler of the nations of Meshech and Tubal in the land of Magog. Denounce him and tell him that I, the Sovereign Lord, am his enemy. I will turn him around, put hooks in his jaws, and drag him

and all his troops away. His army, with its horses and uniformed riders, is enormous, and every soldier carries a shield and is armed with a sword. Troops from Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with him, and all have shields and helmets. All the fighting men of the lands of Gomer and Beth Togarmah in the north are with him, and so are men from many other nations”.

An explanation of the names used in the text from Ezekiel 38 is as follows:

Gog: Is the leader or head of the alliance of nations from the north.  Ezekiel identifies Gog as being of Magog.  Gog is the political leader who organizes the alliance.

Land of Magog: The Jewish historian Josephus identified the land of Magog as Scythia, the progenitors of Russia which is north of Israel.  Also, in Genesis chapter 10, Magog is identified as one of the sons of Japheth. Therefore, by the time of Ezekiel his offspring would be a major nation. 

Meshech...Tubal:  These nations, like Magog, are the descendents of Japheth; In Ezekiel’s days, these nations were listed as traders for the goods of Tyre, north of Israel.

Gomer and Togarmah are located in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey. All these countries are located directly north of Israel.

Note: ……I need to mention here that there is some disagreement about the exact location of the various countries, however it is clear that they are all directly located north of Israel as mentioned in Ezekiel 38…………

The northern nations mentioned above will be accompanied by a federation of Arab states including Iran, Ethiopia and Libya, and Gómerd, and Beth-togarmah.

2 - RECOGNITION OF THE TIMES WE LIVE IN

We read in Daniel 9:26 as follows:” The end will come like a flood, bringing the war and destruction which God has prepared”. 

Jesus says in Mathew 24: 6 and 7: “You are going to hear the noise of battles close by and the news of battles far away; but do not be troubled. Such things must happen, but they do not mean that the end has come.   Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be famines and earthquakes everywhere”. And again in Mark 13: 7 and 8: “And don't be troubled when you hear the noise of battles close by and news of battles far away. Such things must happen, but they do not mean that the end has come. Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be earthquakes everywhere, and there will be famines. These things are like the first pains of childbirth”.

In addition we read in Luke 21 verses 25-28: “There will be strange things happening to the sun, the moon, and the stars. On earth whole countries will be in despair, afraid of the roar of the sea and the raging tides. People will faint from fear as they wait for what is coming over the whole earth, for the powers in space will be driven from their courses.   Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in a cloud with great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near.”

-----It is not difficult to recognize that the time we live in now is very similar to the time represented in the texts cited above.

All this will end in a war called the war of Armageddon as we read in Revelation 16:16 and 17: “Then the spirits brought the kings together in the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon”. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl in the air. A loud voice came from the throne in the temple, saying, “It is done!” There were flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, and a terrible earthquake………”

Evangelist John of Patmos writes the Book of Revelation

1 - INTRODUCTION:

Since centuries, many people have thought that the "time of the end of the world", and / or the return of Christ was near. Until 1948 all of them had made ​​their calculations and predictions without realizing that the Bible clearly says that Jesus will return amongst his people and He will descend on the Mount of Olives.. See Zechariah 14: 1-4: “The day when the Lord will sit in judgment is near. Then Jerusalem will be looted, (This indicates that the people of Israel must have returned to Jerusalem) and the loot will be divided up before your eyes. The Lord will bring all the nations together to make war on Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half of the people will go into exile, but the rest of them will not be taken away from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past. At that time he will stand on the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem. Then the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west by a large valley. Half of the mountain will move northward and half of it southward”…. We know that, - since the siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD -, the Israelites possessed their country again for the first time in 1948, when the state of Israel was officially recognized internationally. By not returning the Israelites in their promised land

before this date, the time of the return of Jesus Christ could not be until after 1948. And more precisely after 1967, when the Israelites conquered Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives became part of its territory.

              Mount of Olives

Therefore, only now, after the year 1967, the time has come that we can talk about the return of Jesus, because everything is ready to receive him. This is in conjunction with the existence of many other signs and signals, about which I will speak later.

It is also important to mention here that God has promised that once when Israel has returned to his country, they will never be expelled from their country again. Israel will be in its country and in Jerusalem at the time when Jesus will return "amongst his people.”(See Amos 9: 14, 15: “I will bring my people back to their land. They will rebuild their ruined cities and live there; they will plant vineyards and drink the wine; they will plant gardens and eat what they grow. I will plant my people on the land I gave them, and they will not be pulled up again.” The Lord your God has spoken”.

About the notions “end of times” and “return of Jesus” we will go into more detail later, but already now we can conclude from the above that the “end of times” or the return of Jesus can only be AFTER de year 1967 and BEFORE many hostile nations - that will come to battle against Israel - are about to seize their country.

This is why Israel never will return to its borders of before 1967, as proposed by Obama in his “peace plan”.  Because this would mean that Israel would give up the Mount of Olives. Also this would go in against that what is written in Amos 9:15.

This timespan appears to be very limited when we look at all that is happening around Israel right now such as the unrest in many Arab countries like Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq…. and more countries, too many to mention here. Also: There is a growing anti-Semitism going on now, and in addition we see the protection that Russia and China give to Syria and other Arab countries surrounding Israel.

This blog describes what is written in the Bible about that what must happen before the return of Christ.

The style of the document is to "let the Bible speak" and only add comments where needed to assist in understanding the correct meaning of the texts.

I will speak first of the wars that will arise among the nations.

In the second part I will discuss the scenarios, especially related to the powers that will arise in the world, and which will exist during those wars.

Always when the Bible is quoted, the text will appear in italics. 

A few words at the continuation of this blog:

In the introduction to this blog, about the visions of Daniel, I have mentioned that the "Revelation to Daniel" we should read together with the "Revelation to John."

Together they give us a more clear understanding of the time we live in: “the End Times”, in which we now find ourselves.

For that reason I have added here below a number of comments and explanations of what the bible describes, in relation to the end times, according to the book of Revelation, where it says in chapter 1 verse 1 that it is “the record of the events that Jesus Christ revealed. God gave this revelation to John in order to show to his servants what must happen very soon”.

“Happy is the one who reads this book, and happy are those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey what is written in this book! For the time is near when all these things will happen”. (Revelation 1 verse 3)

THE  END  TIMES  ACCORDING  TO  THE BIBLE

INDEX OF CHAPTERS

1 - Introduction                                                                      

2 - Recognition of the times we live in                                  

3 - The wars of the nations against Israel after 1967            

3.1-The invasion of the nations from the north into Israel

3.2-The invasion of China into Israel                                     

3.3-The final attack of the nations against Jerusalem          

4 - Events leading up to the invasions into Israel                  

4.1-The false prophet                                                           

4.2-The Antichrist                                                                 

4.2.1-The Antichrist and the peace pact                                 

5---The moment of the invasion of the nations from the north into Israel.

6 - The Last Battle                                                                

6.1-Location of the last battle                                                

6.2-Prophecies and visions about the end                             

13.10- Additional note to Daniel 11 verse 36

We read in Daniel 11 in verse 36 about the appearance of the “king of Syria”, which is the image of the antichrist

The discussion given before about this verse, gave a number of characteristics of how the antichrist can be recognized when he appears. Under part b) it already mentions that he will have the

appearance of a Jew…. in order to be acceptable to the Jews. He is however an Esau-Jew. 

This already occurred with Herod, The “king of the Jews”, at the time Jesus was born. Herod was born in Idumea, south of Judea. Idumea is the same as Edom, of the lineage of Esau. As many Edomites he had accepted the customs of the Jews. These "Judaized" Edomites were not considered Jewish by the dominant Pharisaic tradition, so even though Herod tried to be of the Jewish faith, he was not considered Jewish by the watchful and nationalist Jews of Judea. 

Esau always disguises himself as Jacob, after Jacob disguised himself once as Esau.  Esau will do everything he can to get back his rights as the first-born son, which he sold once to Jacob for some bean soup. This “right of the first born son”, is the Kingship of this world. See Genesis 18 verses 17-19: “And the Lord said to himself, “I will not hide from Abraham what I am going to do. His descendants will become a great and mighty nation, and through him I will bless all the nations. I have chosen him in order that he may command his sons and his descendants to obey me and to do what is right and just. If they do, I will do everything for him that I have promised”.   Esau was only interested in the earthly part of the blessing. Not the blessing of the coming of the Messiah for this world, because Esau is not interested in that part.   This is the big difference between Jacob and Esau. 

13.9- Additional note to Daniel 10 verse 21

In Daniel 10 verse 21 we read that the angel that spoke to Daniel says: “Now I have to go back and fight the guardian angel of Persia. After that the guardian angel of Greece will appear. There is no one to help me except Michael, Israel's guardian angel. He is responsible for helping and defending me”.

In the same way, also we should be prepared for this constant fight against the “cosmic powers of this dark age” during our prayers. See Ephesians 6 verse 12:  “For we are not fighting against human beings but against wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age”. 

Jesus, the Messiah, the King of Kings, shows us the way, because He is already the victor over these wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, against which we can resist in faith, using his armor. (See Ephesians 6 verse 16: “At all times carry faith as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the Evil One”).

In the time of Daniel, - before Golgotha -, it was the battle for securing the continuation of the existence of God’s people, in view of the first coming of the Messiah. We can see first that Persia was being used by Satan as the “stronghold” against God’s people. After this it was Greece, where Satan hid himself.

In our time we see continuously the battle for the existence of Israel, the place for the return of Christ. But God will assure their continued presence in this world, and specifically in their country. See 1 Corinthians 1 verse 8: “He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be faultless on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ”.  

And as it was then, and is also now, there is only Michael, Israel's guardian angel, who is helping the Lord.  Apparently the angel Gabriel is not a combatant.