Living in Florida, I realize that there is a big difference between a Hurricane Watch and a Hurricane Warning. When I lived in the Midwest, I knew that there was a difference between a Tornado Watch and a Tornado Warning. I grew up living in the Sangamon River Valley (we called it the “bottoms”), which was prone to flooding from time to time, from an overflowing Sangamon River. My own parents house was wiped out by one of those floods before I was born. I know the difference between a Flood Watch and a Flood Warning. Similar to Tornado Warnings and Flood Warnings, “Hurricane warnings indicate that hurricane conditions … are expected somewhere within the specified area. … A hurricane watch means that hurricane conditions … are possible within the specified area” (https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/watch-warning.html). The mistake many well-intentioned preachers and bible interpreters make when discussing eschatology is to issue warnings when only watches are called for. With the warnings vs. watches distinction in mind, I think it might be prudent to issue a Gog and Magog Watch at this point—not a Warning, but a Watch.
In my previous post, I wrote approvingly of those “Muslims who … took my courses at Loyola University Chicago, in the 1990s. … They agreed with my position that we should not drink alcohol. They agreed that we should practice sexual purity. They agreed that abortion was unacceptable. They agreed that God should be revered.” I applauded “Muslim parents [who] delivered passionate speeches against elementary schoolchildren in Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools being forced to learn LGBTQ sexuality curriculum against parents' wishes at a [June 27, 2023] school board meeting.” On the other hand, I also condemned those “Muslims who engage in atrocious behavior, such as the Islamic terrorists who murder innocents, and hate Christians and Jews.”
With the Hamas attack on Israel, this past Sabbath, we have seen that atrocious behavior repeated—what has been called Israel’s 9-11. I wrote in my blogpost Apocalyptic #39: The Final Battle of History (posted January 13, 2022), which also appears in my soon-to-be-released book Apocalyptic Apologetic: Nails in the Coffin of Atheism, the following observation:
The end of human history, according to Revelation, is focused
around four entities: 1. the Dragon (who raises up world empires),
2. his final Beastly protege(s)—Gog and Magog—and, once again, 3.
the “land” and “the beloved city,” along with an additional entity, 4. “the
camp of the saints.” Revelation 20:7-9 tells us:
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 (land), 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 (land) and surrounded the
camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of
heaven and devoured them.
I offered the following caveat at the beginning of that earlier post: “Allow me to acknowledge, at the outset of this blogpost, that much of what I write in this specific post is speculative.” I make no claim to be a prophet, just a student of God’s Word. There is certainly the possibility that my speculative interpretations are in error. As Kenneth Burke stated, “[A]n interpretation can be wrong. Hence, a point of view introduces the possibility of error. But where there is the possibility of a wrong interpretation, there is also the possibility of a right one. The freedom to err argues a freedom to be right” (PC 257). In that spirit of optimistic humility, I speculated the following:
The words “the ... city” in Revelation ALWAYS refer to Jerusalem, but sometimes to the old Jerusalem and sometimes to the New Jerusalem. In the first 90% of Revelation … referring to the old (earthly) Jerusalem … In the final 10% of Revelation … referring to the New Jerusalem … ONLY ONCE does John refer to “the BELOVED city” … here, in Revelation 20:9—placed CONSPICUOUSLY BETWEEN John’s two divergent uses of the term “the . . . city.” This does not seem sheerly accidental; it seems intentional. … By simple deduction, since the New Jerusalem will not arrive until a new heavens and new earth are created, John must still be referring to the earthly Jerusalem. We, therefore, may feel confident that we know who the “beloved city” is (Jerusalem) and what the “land/HA-ARETZ/earth/GĒ” is (the Land of Israel). Jerusalem (along with the Land of Israel) is the central scene of the final battle of history.
…
Who,
then are Gog and Magog? … Gog and Magog were understood to be the final
anti-Jewish political forces who would invade the land of Israel in the final
conflict in the history of the world. … Yet, Gog and Magog would be
destroyed in the land of Israel, as they proceed to attack. This is
interesting, since the Jews were not even in control of the land of Israel from
the year AD 70 until the year AD 1948. With the emergence of the State of
Israel in 1948, the stage could be set for a possible invasion from Gog and
Magog.
…
[T]he
term “camp” is most likely referring to a military entity … it is not referring
to a heathen military entity. This entity is a military entity of the
“saints.” … In 14:12, John makes clear that the saints “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,” so they are Christians.
…
If, then, the “camp of the saints” is a Christian military entity, there is really only one major “Christian” military entity in the world, right now: the armed services of the United States of America. …
It turns out … that the two strongest western
allies, at present, are the United States and Israel. If I were to
speculate concerning the identities of the “camp of the saints” and “the
beloved city,” in the current environment, I would guess that this alliance of
the strongest Christian country and the Jewish nation of Israel might be the
co-targets of Gog and Magog. I would, then, be on the alert, if any major
military movement against Israel (the land) and Jerusalem (the beloved city)
begins.
…
While it seems to me, at the present, that the most likely enemy
of Israel (and the U.S., for that matter) would be a Muslim country, such as
Iran, there is no more powerful political and economic adversary of the United
States, right now, than Communist China. Gog and Magog could be a conglomeration
of Muslim countries or it could be a multi-national alliance of Communist or
former Communist nations. … Nevertheless, with Muslim Pakistan in
possession of nuclear weapons and Muslim Iran rapidly developing them and
Muslim Afghanistan in possession of the extremely large sophisticated weapon
cache left behind when the Biden administration pulled out and with the
significant wealth and power of Muslim Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
(not to mention Ethiopia, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, and perhaps
even Iraq, etc.), the development of an anti-Israel (and anti-American) Islamic
confederation is certainly not out of the question, with these countries
existing, as Revelation puts it, on the “four corners of the land” of Israel
(Revelation 20:8). It appears to me that the Egyptian-based Muslim
Brotherhood, the Syrian and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and the Palestinian-based
Hamas are continually trying to provoke such a conflagration between Islamic
countries and the US-Israeli alliance. I would keep an eye on such
possibilities. The fear of “mutually-assured destruction” has generally
held sway in the conflict between America and her Communist foes, but Islamic
terrorists display no such fear. They even seek the reward of dying in a
Jihad. Hence, that is my greater concern.
Those were my speculations from nearly two years ago.
Are there any indications that those speculations might apply to the current
Hamas-Israeli War? Clearly, “Hamas” invaded the “land” of Israel.
According to Politico (“How Big is This Going to Get? What to Watch for
in the Israel-Hamas Battle” 8 October 2023,” there are reports that “Hezbollah” has also launched attacks against Israel. Politico
also states, “A Hamas spokesperson reportedly
said Iran supported the weekend attack,
and Iranian officials have cheered it. A Wall Street Journal report Sunday, citing senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah,
said Iranian security officials had helped plan the attack. …
As Hamas attacked, Saudi Arabia and other
Arab states issued statements more sympathetic to the Palestinians
than Israel.”
According to American Military News:
At least nine Americans
were killed in the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel over the weekend, the U.S.
State Department confirmed on Monday. The rising death toll comes
amid reports that American weapons left behind in Afghanistan ended up
in the Gaza Strip and concerns that those weapons may have been used to
kill Americans in Israel.
According to a Newsweek report that flew
under the radar earlier this year, an Israeli commander warned that U.S.
weapons abandoned in Afghanistan during President Joe Biden’s deadly
withdrawal were seen in the hands of Palestinian groups in Gaza (https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/10/us-military-weapons-from-afghanistan-may-have-been-used-to-kill-americans-in-israel-report/).
Communist China, as an ally of
Iran, is also possibly indicated in this mess. The thousands, perhaps millions,
of male military age illegal aliens—including those from Muslim
countries--streaming across the southern (and northern) border of the U.S. (plus the pro-Hamas demonstrations in US cities, over the weekend). gives
one pause regarding whether internal terrorist attacks will soon occur in the United
States. Is Gog and Magog arriving? I do not know. But there are enough elements
at work to at least consider this a Gog and Magog Watch. (if not yet a Warning.) Hebrews 10:25 (KJV) is worth thinking about: “Not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day
approaching.”
