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: Here is a good article talking about how Russia has absolutely nothing to do with Gog and Magog: In December of 2017, the state-run Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak ran an article calling for a united “army of Islam” to invade Israel. More recently, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the undisputed capital of the Jewish State, and has even said that Muslims should embrace the cause of Jerusalem “to the death.” By all accounts, Turkey has now emerged as one of the primary antagonists of Israel in the Middle East, which may come as a surprise to many people. Historically, Turkey has been an ally of Israel and the U.S., and one of the more “moderate” Muslim nations in the world, with a western-style democracy. Turkey’s friendlier posture towards Israel began to shift in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At this time, the Islamic factions in Turkey gained a firmer foothold in Turkish politics, which eventually led to the election of now President Erdogan to the Prime Minister’s office in 2002. Erdogan is a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim through and through. He disdains democracy. One of his primary goals is to re-establish Turkey as the leader of a revived Ottoman Islamic Empire. Since coming to power, Erdogan has systematically silenced, jailed, or executed most of his opponents in the military, media, business sector and in academia. Many of these recent developments in Turkey are a bit unsettling. Nevertheless, it is still important to recognize that the rise of Turkey as a global power does harmonize with certain key Bible prophecies related to what will take place in the Middle East before the return of Yeshua. In Ezekiel 38-39 Ezekiel specifically predicted that Turkey would become one of the primary geopolitical enemies of Israel in the last days. Many people are familiar with Ezekiel 38-39. They know this prophecy speaks of a military invasion of Israel led by a figure known as “Gog of the land of Magog.” Unfortunately however, many prophecy teachers today erroneously connect Gog to Russia. Part of the reason for this is because in both the New American Standard and New King James versions of the Bible, “Gog” is not only said to come from “the land of Magog,” but is also further described as “the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal” (Ez. 38:2). Because the word “Rosh” sounds similar to Russia, and because “Meshech and Tubal” sound similar to the Russian cities Moscow and Tobolsk, it has often been assumed in conservative prophecy circles that Gog must be a Russian. In reality however, most scholars now recognize that Ezekiel 38:2 actually describes Gog as the “chief prince of Meshech and Tubal,” not the “prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.” In other words, the Hebrew term rosh, which means, “head, chief, or foremost,” is modifying Gog’s title as a prince (nasi). It is not the name of a particular place, which in turn, rules out any possible association between Gog and Russia. The idea that Gog is actually the “chief (rosh) prince (nasi) of Meshech and Tubal” is found in the ESV, NIV, HCSB, TLV and JPS translations of the Bible. Now that the association between Gog and Russia has mostly fallen out of favor among scholars, there is near unanimous agreement in scholarly Bible commentaries and Bible atlases that in Ezekiel’s day, Magog, Meshech and Tubal were all located in what is now modern Turkey. For example: The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary states, “Magog (possibly meaning “the land of Gog”) was no doubt located in Asia Minor [Turkey] and may refer to Lydia.” Historian Edwin Yamauchi has also written, “Since the late nineteenth century, Assyrian texts have been available which locate Meshech (Mushku) and Tubal (Tabal) in central and eastern Anatolia [Turkey] respectively.” This critical prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39 may explain why Turkey has recently become one of the primary enemies of Israel on the world stage. Now of course, we do not want to jump to conclusions and say that Erdogan must be Gog! However, those of us with an interest in the signs of the times should definitely keep a close eye on Turkey. Based on Ezekiel’s prophecy, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that key prophetic events will transpire in Turkey in the days ahead. https://www.jewishvoice.org/read/article/rise-turkey-and-ezekiel-38-39 *For fair use and educational purposes* And no need to be calling well respected teachers lazy either. I think it’s uncalled for. Just because your assumption, and let’s remember that that is all it is is an assumption, differs from theirs does not make them lazy. I am not opposed to you having a difference of opinion but let’s keep the accusations that you cannot prove out of it please. :good: And let me present what’s REALLY going on …. :mail: Here is the map of the who who’s in the G/M players. It will be Russia along with Turkey and the rest of the radical Islamic nations who team up and join in. In 2017 Putin said that "whoever becomes the leader in this sphere (A.I) will become the ruler of the world. And he has made sure he has the most A.I. toys. Erdogan’s military does not match Russias … not even close … its laughable. I have posted the difference in their military might a few weeks ago. -Under Putin’s leadership he has already called many of the “stans” countries to fight in Ukraine. - Putin has said recently The Golan Heights doesn’t belong to Israel but to Syria and since Assad has appointed Putin to guard Syria … Putin believes The Golan Heights is his. - Putin now wants a piece of Jerusalem … the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Church back. - Putin supplies the fuel to the European nations and very soon it will be Israel as the major supplier. Ezekiel 38:15 “you will come from your place out of the FAR NORTH, you and many peoples with you” (see also Ezekiel 38:6, 39:2). looking at my downloads, it was middle east meltdown 8 and 9 I heard. I think mostly the end of 8 and into 9 where he addressed it. Going to start from the beginning on that one today. I hesitate making a comment on this thread because I feel like I must be crazy for getting in between the volley - everybody knows you don’t stick your head up in the game of whack a mole but here I go dum dum that I am lol. As far as the likely identity of Rosh, Gog or Magog et al. I consider often scriptures like Ezekiel 28:11-16 where the prophet speaks of the “king of Tyre” who was at one time in the “Garden of Eden”. So we readily recognize that this could not have been just a human king of Tyre but was likely referring to an unclean spirit, some interpret this entity to be Satan himself. So with this set as a principle,I have considered that maybe Gog and Magog are the same way, spiritual entities that empower or control physical leaders of men, tares who are not influenced by the Gospel of Christ, but by the kingdom of darkness. That being said, I think that they are certainly mobile and not limited to a nations borders - could Gog be based in Russia? Yes. Could the spiritual force of Gog set up shop just across man’s borders in Turkey? I guess so. But I would certainly think they are regional and when the Bible describes Gog and Magog I don’t think that these dark spiritual forces will set up shop and operate out of Australia for example, but we should look for them from the regions around Russia and Turkey. So anyway, all I’m saying is that I’ve got my eyes on all the players over there knowing that any of them can be under the influence of those dark principalities and not getting hung up on the physical borders so much, since my understanding is that the Bible may be referring to spiritual principalities that are the puppet masters over there.
