Bernard Pyron

On http://jesus-is-the-way.com/Jerusalem.html, in April of 2005 and

updated in October of 2007 someone named Russell has a different twist

on the Gog-Magog war.

He says "The Strategy: Convince the world that Gog (the Moslem

invader of Israel) will be the antichrist. Especially convince

western "fundamentalists" of the above. Convince "Gog", Moslem

nations, (via an intelligence operation) into invading Israel. This

will lead to "Gog" being destroyed. Convince everyone that the

antichrist (Gog) is dead and that we can have "real peace" now.Start

the "millennium" celebration. Oops, the "millennium" turns out to be

the tribulation. The peace "confirmer" turns out to be the real

antichrist. The world (religiously, doctrinally and politically) is

deceived straight into the kingdom of antichrist, known to the

religious as the "kingdom of heaven."

On http://www.jesus-is-the-way.com/Dispensationalism.html Russell Smith defends classical dispensationalism. He says "Dispensationalists" are under attack from virtually every quarter. The attacks consist mostly of half truths, innuendo, and outright misrepresentation of traditional dispensationalism..The "experts" claim that the "cultic dispensationalists" support Israel at all costs (regardless of what Israel does wrong).

Russell Smith then tries to place the blame on dominionist or post-millennium theology for supporting an attack upon Iran and a build up to world War III. He says "The chief theological opposition to dispensational thought is the idea that those on earth prepare the Kingdom and then He comes (post millennialism)."

He adds that preterism, the belief that all end time Bible prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD with the fall of Jerusalem, and historicism are also alternatives to dispensationalism.

Smith ignores Amillennialism and especially historical premillennialism as being very much alternatives to dispensationalism. Historical premillennialism was the view of the church fathers on end time Bible prophecy up until the time of Origen (185"254 A.D.).  The church fathers believed in a thousand year millennial reign of Christ on earth, knew nothing about a pre-tribulation rapture of the Church, and did not follow a two house theology of Christians and physical Israel nor did they say that unsaved Jews are still the chosen people.  We can follow their view in general while learning more about many specific end time Bible prophecies they did not dig into.

Smith does not deal with the starting place of dispensationalism, which is Jewish supremacy. Dispensationalists begin with the belief that God still has two distinct peoples, or two houses, one physical Israel, the race of people descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Christian Church. To dispensationalists the Jews, whether saved or unsaved, are still God's chosen people. This fundamental starting belief of dispensationalists - what they build their entire system of theology on - contradicts Scripture not only in the Old Testament but also in the writings of Paul and Peter. Read Romans, Galatians, I Peter 2: 9, and Jeremiah 18: 2-6 at least.

In addition, the present day highly influential celebrity John Hagee and his organization Christians United For Israel (CUFI) are following this exact fundamental starting belief of the classical dispensationalists in their campaign to honor the nation of Israel and to promote war to protect Israel.. Smith does not mention John Hagee. He cannot tell us that Hagee is a post-millennialist and not a dispensationalist.

I don't know why Russell Smith has suggested a scenario for the Gog-Magog war of Exekiel 38 and 39 which is radically different from that taught for many years by the dispensationalists. The dispensationalists teach that Russia is Magog. The Scofield Reference Bible's notes to Ezekiel 38 say that "Meshech" is Moscow, and that "Tubal" is the Siberian capital Tobolsk.

Without knowing about Russell Smith's discussion of criticism of dispensationalism and other topics on his http://www.jesus-is-the-way.com I could endorse what he says about he Gog-Magog war. But he appears to be a dispensationalist who happens not to follow the dspensationalist line on the Magog as being Russia.

Dispensationalists may give up some other of their interpretations, such as the pre-tribulation rapture of the Church. But they will likely stick to their two house theology and maintain that the Jews are still God's chosen people, or race.

Smith talks about the antichrist as one single individual in the end times. But what John says in I John 2: 18-22, 4: 3 and in II John 7 about the

antichrist does not necessarily teach that in the end times there will

be one antichrist figure. But John's teaching does not rule out the

very strong possibility that some religious leaders will have an

extraordinary amount of the spirit of antichrist.

That the Gog-Magog war could be triggered by a Mastermind nation that is not the actual military leader in the field for an invasion of Israel is possible.

Ezekiel 38: 4 says "And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy

jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and

horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great

company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:"

"I will turn thee back" could be saying that Gog has started to go in

one direction, but has hooks put in his jaws and made to go in a

different direction, or way.

In this scanario apparently Gog is made a puppet nation by the

master nation of Magog, though Gog would not willingly become the

puppet of this super power nation. Magog in this scenario is the Mastermind, while Gog is a nation or nations manipulated by the Mastermind.

Noting that the international ruling elite uses the Hegelian dialectic

over and over, I can see how the Gog-Magog war could create so much

death and destruction, with some nuclear hits on the U.S. homeland,

that this could be the problem used by the elite in the dialectic..

The solution offered is a much more empowered United Nations which

will be highly totalitarian to prevent empires like the US- Zionist-Christian Zionist, Disensationalist regime to create nuclear war. John Hagee and his organization Christians United For Israel (CUFI) appear to be growing in influence among evangelicals and Hagee-CUFI are allied with the Neocons who want war with Iran and perhaps other Islamic nations.

The "solution" to the problem of widespread death and destruction caused by World War III - the Gog-Magog War - would be the rise to full power of the

political beast of Revelation 13: 1-8 which has been in the making for many years. And along with the rise of this governmental beast there will then be

a heightened antichrist spirit in organized Christianity. See the many end time prophecies in the Bible showing a falling away from the faith and from Christ's doctrine in the very end time.

On one level in Revelation 13, the second beast of verses 11 to 18, often called the false prophet, will come forth as a spiritual power and will exalt and honor the first beast which is the nation that had the deadly wound that was healed. This is the nation of Israel, and the false prophet appears to lead many to worship and honor national, unsaved Israel. It was defeated in 70 AD by the Roman army, but that deadly wound was healed in 1948 when Israel reappeared as a nation.

In other words, on one level in Revelation 13, there are two beasts, one the governmental or political beast, which can be an empowered United Nations, and the second beast is false Christianity or the false prophet. On a second layer the first beast is physical and unsaved Israel, which in dispensational theology is one of the houses of God. Here the second beast is false Christianity, God's second house, and this is also the false prophet as a leader of Christian Zionism who exalts the house of national Israel and works for and with the first beast which is national Israel.

The Gog-Magog war can bring on the beginning of the tribulation - or the Tribulation might come somewhat later.

The question is who is Magog? Is there any reason to suspect that

Magog might be the United States or at least its government?

Soviet Georgia, which was a part of the Soviet  Union, is now a client state of the United States. Gog is found in the Georgian language

as Gogi Da Magogi. The ancient Georgians were known in Josephus as the Iberi, and the Jews thought the Iberi were Tubal.

Jeff Cross did two broadcasts recently on Christian Media Network

called the "Children of the Comet." He says the increasing

realization of the similarity between the pagon religions of the

Hindus and the Celts mostly in the British Islands may give the New

Age Occult movement greater momentum soon. Jeff didn't get into the

claims that the Scythians - and perhaps the Scythians and Cimmerians

became one group - were descendants of Magog in writings of Josephus,

Jerome and Herodotus. Jeff was interested in the migrations of the

Indo-Europeans into Europe and India from their area north of the

Black Sea at the time of the comet, which he says was about 1447 BC.

As far as I know, Jeff Cross's broadcasts on his show called "Short

Wave Wars" are not archived. He can be heard on Christian Media

Network every Tuesday at 2 PM central time.

The Indo-Europeans or Caucasians - perhaps the

Scythian-Cimmerians -

migrated into Europe and then into England and Ireland. The Anglo-Saxons mixed to some extent with the British Celts and so the English as well as the Scotch, Welsh and Irish may have a Cetic identity. The Germanic peoples may also be related to the historical Magog of Genesis 10.

According to the Lord Mayor of London, the giants Gog and Magog are traditional

guardians of the City of London, and images of them have been carried

in the Lord Mayor's Show since the days of King Henry V. There may be a Niphilim connection of Genesis 6 to these giants called Gog and Magog.

Monmouth's

12th century Historia Regum Britanniae and the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the Book of Invasions) claim the British Celts and Irish are descendants of Magog. This all gets murky in mythology, but in part the identity of the Indo-European peoples as Magog may have some truth. The US as the surviving super power was primarily settled by what they call "Old

American Stock," the English and Scotch-Irish mainly, with some Welsh and even fewer French Huguenots. Later the old stock was joined by

Germans and other possible descendants of Magog.

Though the identity of Magog began from a real historical ancestor

found in Genesis 10: 2, that identity may have shifted to a spiritual

one, even though its possible that many Americans are descendants of

Indo-Europeans who may have been racially related to the historical Magog.

Its the political and spiritual identity or spiritual signature of the

Bush-Cheney-Neocon-Christian-Zioinist regime that makes one see the one remaining super power,the U.S, as possibly being Magog. This is now the nation which seems interested in starting a war with Iran which may spread. And if

the Gog-Magog war happens on Hillery's watch, its pretty much the same

policy. The groundwork for the Gog-Magog war was laid in the Bush-Cheney era.

Bible prophecy sometimes does not have the clarity we would like.

Most followers of dispensationalism have long said that Russia is Magog. But on http://aoreport.com/mag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=64 they say:

"The central or main reason for holding to the view that Russia is

Magog is the claim that the Hebrew word in Ezekiel 38:2 for "chief

prince" is the word "Rosh" in part because it is similar in phonetic

sound to Russia...To further buttress the Russia theory, Lindsey has

promoted the notion that the Hebrew word "meschech" is a phonetic

reference to "Moscow" and Tubal is the phonetic rendering for the

Russian city of Tobalsk while others claim it is for the Georgian

city of Tblisi."

Hebrew is a different language than English or other European

languages. The Hebrew word "rosh" meaning chief in Strong's

Exhaustive Concordance is number 7218, wich Strong's defines

as "from an unusual root apparently meaning to shake; the head

whether it be literally or figuratively - band, captain, chief,

first, forefront, head...ruler."

Prince is Strong's number 5387, nasi, an exalted one, i.e. as a king

or sheik...captain, chief

In order to show that the Hebrew word rosh contains meanings that

suggest the nation of Russia, a scholar would have to have evidence

for this. Hal Lindsey or whoever he got the idea from that rosh is

Russia demonstrated little scholarship in making this connection.

Because the Hebrew word rosh sounds a little like Russia does

not mean

there is a connection between rosh and Russia. Even within a language there are words that sound much the same but have very different meanings. Rosh provides no evidence that Magog is Russia. And because the area north of the Black Sea or the Caucasus region where the Indo-Europeans supposedly started from was in the

Soviet Union does not mean that Russia is Magog.

Ezekiel 39: 6 says "And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD."

Gog is not mentioned in Ezekiel 39: 6. The fire the Lord will send is to be on Magog. In the scenario described here Magog is the Mastermind of the Gog-Magog war which results in the slaughter of Islamic armies in Israel. Fire will come on the Mastermind nation Magog. "Isles" in Ezekiel 39: 6 is Strong's Exhaustive Concordance number 339 which is said to mean a habitable spot, dry land, a coast, an island. New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco are all on the coasts. The fire will come on them that dwell "carelessly." Carelessly is Strong's number 983, which means a place of refuge, safety, both the fact and the feeling (trust), assurance, without care, safe, secure. "Fire" could be some kind of nuclear weapons. Bernard