Today’s message summary of February 22, 2015 from Pastor Gus Brown:
Lord, we want to be a people who studies Your Word as we want to be faithful to You. We want to be true unto You and committed to You. Burn this unto our hearts as we commit to loving this life for You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The first two World Wars set the stage for Israel to take center stage in the scope of the entire world. World War I allowed for the return of many Jews to their homeland. World War II presented the opportunity for Israel to become a nation (in 1948). God’s Word has declared that Israel would be a nation, and this has taken place.
These are the beginnings of the end times. We are to pay attention to how things are taking place in today’s world that are unprecedented in our time. What is accepted as normal today is far from what we can imagine. We have accepted teen pregnancy as the norm. While we can say that these things have been going on since the time of Adam, there is a greater intensity of these things that are taken place.
These things are leading us towards the tribulation or within the first years of the tribulation.
Ezekiel 38 and 39 are not part of Revelation 20, pertaining to the battle of Armageddon. My thought is that if Israel is going to sign a peace treaty, and the treaty is going to be broken, you won’t be able to have peace and conflict at the same time. What would be the circumstances where Israel would make a treaty with someone for peace? Something has to take place to lead up to the three and one half years that sets the stage for the Abomination of Desolation. There had to be a conflict that would set up Israel to enter a covenant that would grant them peace, and would allow them to rebuild the temple to resume their sacrifice. (Sometime during this period, Israel will get very comfortable with its practices and making sacrifices.) One who will promise peace, and then, at some point, step into the temple and call himself God will represent the treaty. It will take the entire world by surprise.
Daniel 9:27
He will make a firm covenant with many for one week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator.
Daniel 11:31
His forces will rise up and desecrate the temple fortress. They will abolish the daily sacrifice and set up the abomination of desolation.
Amos 8:11
Hear this! The days are coming–this is the declaration of the Lord God–when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
Our world is in the midst of this famine today. Christians have readily put down their bibles and will make it much easier for the opposition–the Adversary–to present himself as one who brings peace and deceives the nations.
Matthew 24:15-16
15 “So when you see the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place” (let the reader understand[), 16 “then those in Judea must flee to the mountains!
2 Thessalonians 2:4
He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits in God’s sanctuary, publicizing that he himself is God.
Ezekiel 38:5-6
Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shields and helmets; Gomer with all its troops; and Beth-togarmah from the remotest parts of the north along with all its troops–many peoples are with you.
Ezekiel 38:5-6 – Five other nations will join with Russia.
- Persia – Iran
- Cush – Ethiopia
- Put – Libya
- Gomer – Germany
- Beth-Togarmah – Turkey
Many nations with you (Not all nations are against Israel; however, in the battle of Armageddon, all nations will be involved.)
Russia and her friends are coming for the spoils of Israel.
Ezekiel 38:11-13
You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of open villages; I will come against a tranquil people who are living securely, all of them living without walls and without bars or gates–in order to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against ruins now inhabited and against a people gathered from the nations, who have been acquiring cattle and possessions and who live at the center of the world.’ Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its rulers will ask you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hordes to carry off plunder, to make off with silver and gold, to take cattle and possessions, to seize great spoil?’
Why the invasion of Israel? Why would Russia want to attack Israel?
Israel is considered to be in the center of the world. It links to three continents–Europe, Asia and Africa.
Israel may have the richest oil fields in the world.
To address hunger, Israel’s land is producing food (a land flowing with milk and honey)
The Dead Sea – salt, which has been taken from the earliest time of history
A land rich in minerals–sodium, chlorine, potassium, calcium, magnesium
Israel exports one million tons of potash (plant food) per year. Israel can supply potash for the next two hundred years.
In spite of all of this, God will restore Israel to Himself.
Ezekiel 39:21
I will display My glory among the nations, and all the nations will see the judgment I have executed and the land I have laid on them.
Scientists report general information about all nations. In this information:
“It now appears that no land in all of the world is near so rich in minerals as the little land of Israel. It is really the jewel of the world.” The salt alone has been valued at one trillion two hundred seventy billion dollars ($1,270,000,000,000.00).
In 1970, President Nixon said: “It isn’t a case of Israel versus the Arab states, but the Soviet Union is not moving into the Eastern Mediterranean (Afghanistan).
Ezekiel 38:12 – Israel is said to be in this midst of the land.
Ezekiel 5:5
“This is what the Lord God says: I have set this Jerusalem in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.”
A comparison of the two wars:
- In Ezekiel, the main purpose was for God to be made known (8:23; 9:21).
- In the battle of Armageddon, all nations of the world are involved (Joel 3:2, Zechariah 14:2, Revelation 16:14, 16; 20:7-8). Its purpose for its perpetrators was to come against Christ and the Jews.
- Ezekiel 38:13 – the nations protest against Russia
- Armageddon – Satan leads the opposition
- God defeated the northern invaders in Ezekiel 38:22
- In the battle of Armageddon, the slain will be from one end of the earth to the other (Jeremiah 25:33).
- Russia (Gog) – the dead will be buried (Ezekiel 39:12-15). God will destroy them (Ezekiel 38:21-23).
- In Armageddon, there will not be a burial.
1 Timothy 4:1-3
1Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. 3 They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people!
Akron Alliance Fellowship 