It's a horrible mangling of the text that started in England when Russia was competing with England for Central Asia in the Great Game. Framing Russia as the big bad Magog sold well as Russia was already seen as the enemy. The USA picked up the torch in the 20th century. It was easy to once again frame Russia as Magog and the bad guy with shoddy newspaper escatology. The majority of Bible prophecy "experts" have maintained that view because they are lazy, sorry to say. If you actually read the text in Ezekiel 38, it clearly doesn't support that. We will see how it plays out. I'll keep my eye on Turkey. That’s an astonishing statement! I’ll be sure to let JD, Skip Heizig, Greg Laurie, The group at Bible Believers, Jan Markell, and all the rest of them who are seasoned eschatologists know that they are lazy. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. And my personal favorite for study -- Andy Woods. Although to be fair he doesn't say Magog is Russia, he says Rosh is (and no, not because of the way it sounds). If I recall correctly, he has Magog as the various -stan countries. He also talked about how we'd be seeing more of the Turkey is in charge theory. I think he made some fairly strong statements about that, but I need to go back and listen again. I'm still working my way through his Zechariah series, but Mid-East meltdown series on Ezekiel is next up for me (happened to listen to one lesson, but need to start from the beginning). Maybe tomorrow seeing as it's so timely. No need to be sarcastic, thanks. 😉 Those are all well respected bible scholars who love the Lord and have solid doctrine. However, in this one area, they have just accepted the standard escatological narrative without actually reading and studying the text, it would seem. In particular, Ezekiel 38. Martin Luther was a brilliant theologian in many areas but he was Amillennial. If he would have not blindly accepted the standard escatological narrative of his day, he would have come to a very different conclusion by simply reading the text. So, one should not blindly accept the standard escatological narrative without first reading the text and drawing logical conclusions from them. I think we can all agree on that. :good: That seems reasonable. Thanks, Greg. I definitely respect Andy Woods and his teachings so I'll check it out. :good:
