Who Fights the Last Battle? (03/01/23)

One of the most troubling aspects of any consideration of the Last Day must be the scenes we see of what we might construe as the last battle.  It is to be a trying time, to be sure, and more than trying.  Whether we consider it in the aspect of Armageddon, or in its earlier depiction under the leading of Gog and Magog, it is a fearsome time.  What makes it far worse to contemplate is that it is clearly an event that involves God’s own people.  And their involvement is not necessarily as those accompanying a warrior king on his white horse.  Indeed, the earlier prophecies would seem to set God’s people as facing a day of judgment and punishment.  I am not going to spend a great deal of time on this aspect of things, but I do have a couple of passages here that I shall consider, the first being Ezekiel’s prophecy to Gog.

Here is Ezekiel, part of captive Israel taken away to Babylon, but he looks to the future.  Elsewhere he foresees the rebuilding of the temple and reestablishing of Jerusalem, but he sees further still.  He sees that even this punishment that Israel is in the midst of experiencing will not have its full effect upon God’s people.  As so many times before, they will become complacent to the degree that they feel their security.  And it is into that complacency that this prophecy comes, though it is most clearly addressed not to Israel but to her punisher.  “When My people are living securely, will you not know it?” (Eze 38:14-23).  Oh, indeed, Gog will know, and he will come, many peoples with him, mounted and assembled for battle.  “You will come upon My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land.”  And observe this carefully:  “It will come about in the last days that I shall bring you against My land.”  Gog may move by his own volition, but he is most assuredly directed.  God is still in control.  And it is He who is bringing this about in His own land.  And our natural inclination is to read that as being against His own land, for who brings an army except that he may conquer or destroy?

But let us continue with God’s thought.  Why would He do this?  “In order that the nations may know Me when I shall be sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog.”  Okay.  That’s strange on a number of levels, isn’t it?  First off, how could God possibly stand in need of sanctifying?  He is perfectly holy and ever shall be.  Perhaps we need to come nearer the base meaning of being clean, or made clean:  Purified.  Or, perhaps we need to understand that this is God showing Himself holy.  So, is this a cleansing of the sinful from amongst His own?  Is this another judgment upon His people?  That’s not out of the realm of possibility.  There is that message of ease and comfort on their part, and that is, it seems, always a bit of a trap for the people of God.  Oh look, He’s blessed us so, and surely we should enjoy His blessings.  And thus far, yes, I would agree.  But it seems inevitably to lead to a mindset that becomes more enamored of the blessings than of God, and so, sinful acts arise in service to securing and preserving the accumulated wealth, rather than pursuing that which pleases God and stores up treasure in heaven.

But we don’t yet have the picture, do we?  Indeed, we look at the picture ahead, and more than anything, our eyes wish to look away, to find something else to ponder.  In that day, “My fury will mount up in My anger.  In My zeal and My blazing wrath on that day there will be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.”  Everything will be thrown down by it; fish, birds, beasts, buildings, man and mountain alike.  “Every wall will fall to the ground.”  In God’s land, the land of Israel.  As so often, I think we need to avoid the urge to identify this geographically.  I could be wrong.  There could be a quite literal fulfillment of this to come, but as the definition of God’s people has shifted from some specific ethnicity to embrace all who call upon His name, so, I think we must recognize that the land of Israel now encompasses all places wherein there exist those who so call upon Him.  That, in turn, must be recognized as encompassing the whole of the earth, everywhere that mankind is found.  For He shall have His remnant amongst all peoples and all nations.  What does that leave to be represented in Gog?  I don’t know.  Perhaps other people in those same nations.  Perhaps something alien, as unlikely as that seems.

But let us continue.  “I shall call for a sword against him on all My mountains.  Every man’s sword will be against his brother.”  Okay.  Who is He speaking of here, Gog or Israel?  I’m confused.  “With pestilence and blood I shall enter into judgment with him.  I shall rain on him and his troops, those many people with him, a torrential rain of hailstones, fire, and brimstone.”  Oh.  It is only with this that we discern where it is God’s wrath is turned, and it is not upon His own.  Why He allows the battle to come into His lands, among His people, I don’t know.  Our experience has always been that we try and keep the battles elsewhere.  Isn’t that prudent?  Let the destruction happen abroad, and protect the homeland.  But God is not a man.  His ways are not our ways.  He brings His enemies close, lets them feel for a time like they are winning, so that their defeat may be all that much more spectacular and surprising.  Here is this massive army come upon His tiny and complacent populace.  Who could possibly expect them to lose?  Who hasn’t already concluded for themselves how this is going to play out?  But God.

“I shall magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, make Myself known in the sight of many nations.  And they will know that I am LORD.”  There’s your purpose in this.  This is what it’s about.  And it continues in the next chapter.  “I am against you, O Gog.  I shall turn you, drive you, take you from the remote north to bring you against Israel.  I shall strike your weapons from you, and you will fall on the mountains of Israel – all of you.  I will feed you to the beasts and the birds.  You will fall, for it is I who have spoken” (Eze 39:1-5). 

I could keep going, but I think we see the point.  It is simply this:  The battle belongs to the Lord.  Make no mistake.  It’s going to be a terrible time.  The sort of shaking that is in view here is not something one can just relax and enjoy, even knowing He is on your side.  The sight of such hordes of enemies on the horizon is not going to come as comfort to those in the land, any more than Israel’s passing as they approached the land of promise had been comfortable for the nations they passed near.  Indeed, it was terrible news for them, and they knew it.  I have to think the situation is much the same here.  This earthquake, and these approaching armies are terrible news.  God’s people must surely be moved to a quick inspection.  What have we done?  What have we neglected?  Where are the idols in our lives, and is there yet time to repent and return?

And the ringing message I hear in this is that yes, there is time.  And there is also great necessity.  But there is also this, and it is critical to our faith and confidence.  The battle belongs to our Lord.  He is not calling us to repel the enemy.  He will deal with that.  They will destroy themselves.  Israel had seen this before.  Remember Sennacherib?  There he was, right at the walls of Jerusalem, and what happened?  “That night, the angel of the LORD went out, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.  When the remainder rose in the morning, all of them were dead.  So Sennacherib departed back to Nineveh.  There, as he was worshiping in the house of his god, two came and killed him, escaping then to Ararat” (2Ki 19:35-37).

“I shall enter into judgment with him, and deal with his troops.”  “I shall magnify Myself.”  It won’t be you and your armies making some marvelous triumph over them.   No.  It will be in spite of your obvious weakness.  There will be no room for doubt but that I have done it.  And I shall have the glory of it.

Turning now to Zechariah 9, we have a message for Damascus, for Tyre and Sidon.  You may recall that we have encountered them as points of comparison.  When Jesus pronounces His condemnation of Chorazin and Bethsaida for their unbelief, they are compared to these places.  These places had seen their day, and they had seen their day of the Lord.  It had not gone well for them.  And the message is that it will go far worse for those towns, given the powerful witness of Christ that had been among them.  These pagans, He says, would have repented.  We saw that with Assyria, didn’t we?  That was part of Jonah’s reluctance to go to them.  He knew they would repent when they heard of God’s coming judgment, and he didn’t particularly want to see that.  He wanted to see vengeance.  And it came in due time, because repentance for them, as for us, tended to be a temporary thing.  When the danger had passed, old ways returned.  And so we come to this.

“Tyre built herself a fortress.  She piled up her wealth to overflowing.  But behold!  I, the LORD, will dispossess her and cast all her wealth into the sea.  She will be consumed by fire.”  And so it happened.  Other cities will see it and be afraid, pained and confounded.  “I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.”  But observe this!  “Then they also will be a remnant for our God, like a clan in Judah.”  Always, there is that remnant, even amongst the most bitter enemies of God’s people.  If ever there was cause given to set aside any sort of racism or national prejudice, is this not it?  Even there, God says, I have My remnant.  These nations are not your enemies.  These peoples are not your enemies.  You fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in dark places.  Do you get it?  It has ever been so, and it shall continue to be so until the last days are over, and the Last Day is come.

But I want us to hear the beautiful message of our King in this.  “But I will camp around My house because of an army, an army who passes by and returns.  No oppressor will pass over them anymore.”  The Lord camps around the tents of His people.  The enemy may come in like a flood.  But God.  God is with us.  God sets Himself to guard us.  And who can stand against Him?  “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout in triumph!  Behold!  Your king comes to you, just and endowed with salvation.  He is humble, mounted on a donkey, even the foal of a donkey.”  Of course, we cannot possibly read that without seeing forward to the day of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.  Behold your King.  And for a few brief moments, they did.   Before turning on Him.

“And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, the horse from Jerusalem, the bow of war.  He will speak peace to the nations, and His dominion shall be from sea to sea.  And because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free.  Return, O prisoners, you have hope.  I am declaring it.  I will restore double to you.”  God will make Judah a bow, and Ephraim the arrow, stirring up Zion against Greece.  And the LORD will appear over them, His arrow going forth like lightning.  The LORD of hosts will defend them.  He will save them in that day, the flock of His people.  “For they are the stones of a crown, sparkling in His land.”

It’s a thrilling picture in its way, though I must confess I have no taste for the action of battle.  It’s well and good to read of it, to honor those who have fought hard for God and country.  Indeed, I have long enjoyed tales of the British army and navy during the Napoleonic wars, and I am old enough, if barely, to find value in reading of the trials and stunning victories of World War II.  But I have not the least interest in being part of any such venture.  I’m not cut out for such things.  I don’t suppose many of those who found themselves in the midst of them felt themselves cut out for such things either.  I know that where God sets us, He equips us.  If we are to face such times, we can have confidence that He will supply us the backbone to withstand such times.  But I have to say that doesn’t render them any more welcome.

But it is welcome news indeed to read repeatedly that the LORD is over us.  The LORD will defend us.  He will also correct and discipline us, for He is a good Father as well as a victorious Warrior King.  He knows our need, and He sees to it that our need is met, even when we are not particularly desirous of that which is our truest need.  We know this, for He sent His own Son, not sparing Him, in order to see our most desperate need fully and finally addressed.  And He came, didn’t He?  He came, riding on a donkey, even the foal of a donkey.  His Kingship was fully announced.  Yet, He humbly, obediently, went to the cross, took upon Himself the full penalty of our sins, paid the debt of death that was rightly ours to pay, and so, purchased for Himself the liberation of we, the prisoners, setting us free to worship Him in spirit and in truth, setting us free to grow in Him, and granting us the absolute assurance that come what may, we shall one day, that Last Day, come to be with Him, receiving that which has been stored up for us in heaven, lo, these long ages, indeed, was prepared for us even from the very dawn of creation.

Father, I doubt I have done justice to this topic.  But I hope I can at least say I have come to justifiable conclusions.  As with so much in this study, I again beg of You that if I am misinterpreting events, if I am allowing my wishes to occlude my vision of Your purposes, You would open my eyes more fully to Your truth.  I struggle, I confess, to sift preference from perception.  So much of what is said seems capable of multiple interpretations.  So guide me, Holy Spirit, that my knowledge of You, of Your ways, of Your plans and purposes may be true knowledge, and not vain imaginations.  For that would be a most horrible outcome to this whole endeavor.  I want to know You more.  I want to follow You more earnestly.  I want to be clear that my beliefs reflect You and not some idol of my own devising.  And may I, should real understanding come, remain humble and gentle in my convictions, not making of it a cause for strife, but rather, a tool for harmony amongst those who, like me, have put their trust in You.