In light of war with Russia, right now Russia's war with Ukraine trying to take
over the territory, a lot of people started to connect Gog and Magog and into the pretty much
sticking that into the end time prophecy that this is a fulfillment and pretty much that this is that
and like you mentioned, it's about the newspaper eisegesis how and I've read in your book,
I mean you pretty much destroyed that argument that a lot of Bible prophecies are using that Gog
and Magog is Russia and that they are part of that prophetic, could you speak a little bit into that?
Yeah so basically to keep it simple, Ezekiel 38:39 tells the same story that so many of the
other prophets tell. They speak of a coalition of nations that will invade Israel led by or
you know a dictator, Ezekiel calls him Gog. Daniel 11 calls him the king of the North,
it's the Antichrist but the reason that a lot of people go no but this is a different evil end
time dictator. This is a different massive Coalition of Nations. This is a different
invasion of Israel. The reason they separated and see it as as someone distinct is because all
of the nations are clearly North African, Middle Eastern Nations. So because so many people begin
with this false Roman presupposition then they look at this other prophecy where it's clearly
a middle eastern coalition and they go oh this must be a different end time bad guy and I go no
it's the same guy that all the other prophets are talking about. The story the prophets are telling
it's actually pretty simple. In the last days there'll be a a dictator just like Nebuchadnezzar
just like Antiochus Epiphanes just like any of the Syrian Invaders or so on and so forth,
he'll gather a coalition of nations invade the land of Israel,
Jesus will return and kill him. He's called Gog. Other places he's called the Antichrist,
the king of the North, the man of lawlessness. Now, why do people believe that Gog is Russia?
Well because you have all these names listed, he's Gog from Magog, from the land of Magog,
Chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah, Persia, Cush and Put so it lists
these different names and it says in many nations with you so it's not exhaustive but it lists most
of the primary players. Now there's two ways to interpret these very ancient biblical names. One
method is to try to get out all of our historical resources, get out Herodotus, get out Josephus,
get out all of these historians and try to trace the bloodlines, the intermarriages, the migration
patterns of all these different peoples and so for example, people will say well Magog,
Josephus says the Magogians became the Scythians. Now the Scythians that's like such an incredibly
broad term but these were basically all of the tribal nomadic peoples that lived in the Middle
East. They lived in Turkey. They lived eventually they migrated up around through you know Romania,
through Moldova, through Ukraine, up into Russia around the Black Sea and then they
intermarried with a lot of these Scandinavian Viking peoples that were called 'Rus'. They came
down they intermarried and eventually they became the Russians. So to get some people that will say
Magog, Gog is from Magog, that's Russia. The other method of interpreting these names is simply to
identify how they were understood in Ezekiel's day. How did Ezekiel understand these names?
How did his immediate audience understand these names? This is called the historical grammatical
method you just go okay in Ezekiel's day, Gog was Turkey. Meshech Tubal that was Turkey. So he was
trying to point to the region of Turkey. Today it's called turkey in Ezekiel's day it was Magog
Meshech Tubal. Okay the geographic correlation method. Now what these guys do that say well Magog
became Russia is from one name to the next from Magog to Meshech to Gomer, they switch methods
back and forth and when they do that it's like a card trick because most people just reading their
books or listening to their teaching, they don't understand how the magic's done, they just go oh
this guy I trust him, I believe him, he's a good teacher, he just laid out a convincing case that
that Russia is going to lead this Middle Eastern coalition but what they don't realize is that he
switched methods right in the middle of the trick. If you want to try to say that Magog is Russia,
you have to use this historical bloodline DNA migration study with every single one of the names
and all of the names are genetic peoples which means they are the Caucasian children of Noah
and if you follow Gomer, Beth Togormah, Meshech, Tubal etc you end up you have to
not just include Russia, you have to include South America, North America, Australia, New Zealand,
Ukraine, all of Europe and you have to say it's not just the coming Russian invasion of Israel,
it's the coming Panamanian invasion of Israel. It's the coming Brazilian invasion of Israel. It's
the coming Canadian invasion of Israel but no one ever does that because that doesn't sell books.
What does sell books is Russia and so I like to be the magician that comes and
goes hey guys I'm going to show you how all the magicians are doing their tricks. It's a trick
and let's be better students of the scriptures. I would argue that the historical grammatical
method is a more responsible method. We have to be consistent when we do so
Ezekiel is talking about a Turkish-led Middle Eastern North African coalition of nations that
will invade Israel under the headship of the antichrist. it's not talking about Russia. I
am not vindicating Russia by saying this I'm not saying that Putin Putin is a good guy.
I'm not saying what he's doing is right. I'm saying he's just not Gog and so that's
an important qualifier distinction. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for explaining that.