COMPLAINING
II.
The thing about complaining: the attitude. The Lord had protected them while in Egypt. Pharaoh could have decided to slaughter them as a threat instead of use them as slaves. But they worked as slaves because they accepted his rule. Then the rule became oppressive and God stepped in to take them out of Egypt, out of slavery.
God sent the plagues. He defaced all their gods, big and small. He ravaged their economy and polluted the Nile, stressing for them their fragility as a nation.
By this time, Pharaoh has let them go. All the plagues and finally the death of the first born broke Pharaoh. If you look a the situation throughout, BOTH the Israelis AND Pharaoh complain throughout. Israel at being slaves and Pharaoh at facing the fact we all must one day face: WE are not in control. All the money in the world will not stop a tornado. All the armies of the world will not stop an earthquake. All the unwilling submission in the world will not please God. He wants our love and commitment, not merely a bloody sacrifice. And not complaints. (See v. 14 below)
The People are free now, witness to all his miracles, witness to all the glory he brought in bringing Pharaoh to his knees.
But now God leads Moses into an impossible situation.
#2 – The people complained and said to Moses “let us alone” – Exodus 14:11-12 This is when you are faced with what seems like an impossible situation all because you listened to your godly friends or leaders. You wonder if this “Christian thing” is worth it. We sometimes blame the preacher or our Christian friend who has been witnessing to us for all the new drama and pressure in our life.
Ex 14:1 And the Lord said to Moses,
2 "Give orders to the children of Israel to go back and put up their tents before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon, opposite to which you are to put up your tents by the sea.
3 And Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are wandering without direction, they are shut in by the waste land.
4 And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and he will come after them and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and all his army, so that the Egyptians may see that I am the Lord." And they did so.
5 And word came to Pharaoh of the flight of the people: and the feeling of Pharaoh and of his servants about the people was changed, and they said, "Why have we let Israel go, so that they will do no more work for us?"
"Wait a minute. Now WE may have to do the work or pay someone else or conquer another tribe and all that is work, too! This is BAD."
God's message now gets lost in the reality of getting by now without the slaves they have relied on for so long. Personal greed overpowers the feeling of loss. The enormity of God becomes lost. their minds have been overwhelmed by all the power they have witnessed and they want things back the way they were, back to the security of being in control of something. of someone other than themselves.
That enormity seems to often be what makes God so hard for us to grasp. The gods of the Egyptians let them divide up nature and emotions into understandable portions. They could see a god handling the sun or the moon or wind or death but the Israelis saw God as a huge engulfing being outside of it all who created it all and was in control. They couldn't grasp the personality of God but they understood he was there, someone they couldn't fully understand but could worship.
6 So he had his war-carriage made ready and took his people with him:
7 And he took six hundred carriages, all the carriages of Egypt, and captains over all of them.
8 And the Lord made the heart of Pharaoh hard, and he went after the children of Israel: for the children of Israel had gone out without fear.
9 But the Egyptians went after them, all the horses and carriages of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them in their tents by the sea, by Pihahiroth, before Baal-zephon.
10 And when Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians coming after them, and were full of fear; and their cry went up to God.
11 And they said to Moses, Was there no resting-place for the dead in Egypt, that you have taken us away to come to our death in the waste land? why have you taken us out of Egypt?
12 Did we not say to you in Egypt, Let us be as we are, working for the Egyptians? for it is better to be the servants of the Egyptians than to come to our death in the waste land.
God got them safely out of Egypt. They had breathing room. They weren't complaining about the Egyptians giving them riches as they left. They weren't complaining about not having to work for the overseers any longer. They weren't unhappy about having enough to eat and drink and having a chance to live without oppression.
It was only when God sent something they couldn't handle, when he put the face-to-face with a life and death situation that they began to complain.
13 But Moses said, Keep where you are and have no fear; now you will see the salvation of the Lord which he will give you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.
14 The Lord will make war for you, you have only to keep quiet.
"Shut up and listen."
God sends the impossible for us to know He can handle the impossible. Then we will know that the every day is a simple problem for Him. So we will pursue Him in prayer every day. If He can rescue His children from the whole army of Pharaoh, He can deliver them from a bad economy or mean neighbors. That's why the Red Sea is at the beginning of their escape. He's giving them a chance to learn at the start. That there are many more complaints lets us know how easily God's lessons get forgotten.
Recall the comment that Christ couldn't perform miracles in Nazareth because of unbelief (Mark 5) and always recall that complaining is a sign of disbelief,
15 And the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? give the children of Israel the order to go forward.
16 And let your rod be lifted up and your hand stretched out over the sea, and it will be parted in two; and the children of Israel will go through on dry land.
17 And I will make the heart of the Egyptians hard, and they will go in after them: and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and over his army, his war-carriages, and his horsemen.
18 And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when I get honour over Pharaoh and his war-carriages and his horsemen.
19 Then the angel of God, who had been before the tents of Israel, took his place at their back; and the pillar of cloud, moving from before them, came to rest at their back:
The Angel here may be Christ and it would serve as a perfect example of God appearing in both manifestations as evidence of the Godhead. The Angel of the Lord seems to always indicate Jesus.
Hall's Explication:
Exodus 14:19
And the Angel of the Covenant (which was Christ) removed the signs of his presence, from before the Israelites, behind them.
Now He has appeared to them as He did to their forefathers. He has blessed them beyond their understanding and they are busy complaining about their situation.
20 And it came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel; and there was a dark cloud between them, and they went on through the night; but the one army came no nearer to the other all the night.
21 And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, the Lord with a strong east wind made the sea go back all night, and the waters were parted in two and the sea became dry land.
22 And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.
Did you catch that? They walked on "dry land." That should have been muck. It had no time to dry. they were on the sea bottom at once. Animals, carts, people should have been slogging along, pulling their feet from ankle deep swamp. But God not only parted the sea, He dried the ground beneath the ocean. And they run between walls of water on either side. Waiting all the while to crash in on them. God will always smooth the way when we follow His leading.
23 Then the Egyptians went after them into the middle of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses and his war-carriages and his horsemen.
24 And in the morning watch, the Lord, looking out on the armies of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, sent trouble on the army of the Egyptians;
25 And made the wheels of their war-carriages stiff, so that they had hard work driving them: so the Egyptians said, Let us go in flight from before the face of Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.
26 And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the sea, and the waters will come back again on the Egyptians, and on their war-carriages and on their horsemen.
27 And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, at dawn the sea came flowing back, meeting the Egyptians in their flight, and the Lord sent destruction on the Egyptians in the middle of the sea.
28 And the waters came back, covering the war-carriages and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh which went after them into the middle of the sea; not one of them was to be seen.
29 But the children of Israel went through the sea walking on dry land, and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.
30 So that day the Lord gave Israel salvation from the hands of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea's edge.
31 And Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done against the Egyptians, and the fear of the Lord came on the people and they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
(BBE)
Two things:
First, that last sentence part "And they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses" shoul likely have the words "for a while" after it.
And second:
https://gotquestions.org/Russia-end-times.html
Question: "Does the Bible say anything about Russia in relation to the end times?"
Answer: With Russia back in the news in a big way, many people are wondering if recent events in eastern Europe have anything to do with end-times prophecy—and, if so, how? Much of the discussion has to do with an ancient prophecy from Ezekiel: “The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal”’” (Ezekiel 38:1–3). The identities of “Gog,” “Magog,” “Meshek,” and “Tubal” are the key to fully understanding the prophecy.
Gog is a person. Whoever Gog is, he is from the land of Magog and is the leader of Tubal and Meshek (some translations add “Rosh” to the list) and a confederacy of other nations: Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah (Ezekiel 38:5–6). And, whoever he is, he will have plans to “attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people,” viz., Israel (verses 11, 14, and 18). But, regardless of Gog’s plans, the Lord God is against him and will defeat him soundly (Ezekiel 38:4, 19–23; 39:3–5).
Magog is a land “in the far north,” from Israel’s point of view (Ezekiel 38:15; 39:2). Most Bible commentators interpret “Magog” as Russia—and, indeed, Russia is straight north of Israel, all the way up to the Arctic Circle. According to this view, “Rosh” is a reference to Russia, “Meshek” is either Moscow or the people north of the Black Sea (the area of southern Russia and Ukraine), and “Tubal,” which is always listed with Meshek in Scripture, is identified as a city in Siberia or an area in central Turkey.
Others see “Magog” as a general term used in Ezekiel’s day to identify barbarians living near the Black and Caspian Seas. Regardless of the exact locations of Magog, Tubal, and Meshek, there is no doubt that the general area includes portions of Russia and the former Soviet Union, and possibly some Arab countries.
So, yes, the Bible does mention Russia, although not by that name, in connection with the end times. Ezekiel 38—39 definitely refer to a nation coming from northern Asia to attack Israel. After the Cold War, Russia lost its superpower status, making the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy seem unlikely in some people’s eyes. However, recent events have shown that Russia is gaining strength, and many believe that the invasion of Crimea is just a first step in Russia’s plan to restore its dominance in that hemisphere. It is also interesting to note that, in the Soviet era, Moscow was solidly aligned with several Muslim countries in opposition to Israel. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has continued to make overtures to the Muslim world.
According to the Bible, there will come a time when Russia, in alliance with several other countries, will amass a huge army against Israel, with a view to plunder the Jews’ land. The nations aligned with Russia for this military endeavor are Persia (modern-day Iran), Put (modern-day Sudan), Cush (modern-day Libya), Gomer (part of modern-day Turkey), and Beth Togarmah (another portion of modern-day Turkey or possibly Syria). Most of these nations are currently militant Islamic states with an express hatred of Israel. Ezekiel says that, when the aggressors move against Israel, a few other nations (“Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish”) will remonstrate, as will “all her villages”—possibly colonies (Ezekiel 38:13). Sheba and Dedan are associated with areas of northern Africa. Tarshish could be a reference to Spain (which colonized much of South America), Britain (which colonized the United States), or somewhere in eastern Africa. The objections to Magog’s aggression will fall on deaf ears, however, and the invasion will continue.
Some commentators believe this war is one of the events leading up to beginning of the tribulation. Others believe it will occur close to the midpoint of the tribulation, since Israel will be “dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (Ezekiel 38:11)—in other words, Israel will feel secure at that time, possibly because of the covenant they have signed with the Antichrist (Daniel 9:27). Either way, this battle is distinct from the Battle of Armageddon, which occurs at the end of the tribulation.
God promises to destroy Gog’s army: “I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him” (Ezekiel 38:22). The bodies of the fallen army of Magog will be buried, but it will take over seven months to complete the macabre task (Ezekiel 39:12, 14). This supernatural judgment will have the effect of preserving Israel and turning many hearts to God: “And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 38:23). Many will be saved during the tribulation (Revelation 7), and the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38—39 will be one means by which God will bring people to a knowledge of Himself.
There is much we do not know for certain about Ezekiel’s prophecy, including the timing of these events. However, it is clear that Russia will be involved and will in fact lead an end-times league of nations to seize Israel’s land. The prophet Ezekiel comforts Israel in much the same way as Moses had centuries ago: “The LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory” (Deuteronomy 20:4).
Then: the most powerful army in the world riding chariots down on Israel to crush her under horse driven wheels, spears and arrows ready to pierce flesh. Soon: the most powerful alliance perhaps ever coming down on Israel to crush her under tank treads and leather boots, ready to pierce flesh with bullets and shrapnel. Both to suffer similar fates. the first drown by tons of water, the latter blasted by tons of fire, hail and plague.
He clearly predicted the first and clearly predicts the second. He let Israel take the Promised Land and crush every tribe there but only as He went before them, only in His way as at Jericho. When they turned from Him, He let both Assyria and Babylon conquer Israel and then let them be crushed.
Through history, one country emerges as a power then falls to another or to internal failures and ios replaced because it never learned the lessons of history, never realized it was never meant for forever. 200 years is just a sneeze in the epoch and God is the One who says " Gesundheit" to eternity.
II.
The thing about complaining: the attitude. The Lord had protected them while in Egypt. Pharaoh could have decided to slaughter them as a threat instead of use them as slaves. But they worked as slaves because they accepted his rule. Then the rule became oppressive and God stepped in to take them out of Egypt, out of slavery.
God sent the plagues. He defaced all their gods, big and small. He ravaged their economy and polluted the Nile, stressing for them their fragility as a nation.
By this time, Pharaoh has let them go. All the plagues and finally the death of the first born broke Pharaoh. If you look a the situation throughout, BOTH the Israelis AND Pharaoh complain throughout. Israel at being slaves and Pharaoh at facing the fact we all must one day face: WE are not in control. All the money in the world will not stop a tornado. All the armies of the world will not stop an earthquake. All the unwilling submission in the world will not please God. He wants our love and commitment, not merely a bloody sacrifice. And not complaints. (See v. 14 below)
The People are free now, witness to all his miracles, witness to all the glory he brought in bringing Pharaoh to his knees.
But now God leads Moses into an impossible situation.
#2 – The people complained and said to Moses “let us alone” – Exodus 14:11-12 This is when you are faced with what seems like an impossible situation all because you listened to your godly friends or leaders. You wonder if this “Christian thing” is worth it. We sometimes blame the preacher or our Christian friend who has been witnessing to us for all the new drama and pressure in our life.
Ex 14:1 And the Lord said to Moses,
2 "Give orders to the children of Israel to go back and put up their tents before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon, opposite to which you are to put up your tents by the sea.
3 And Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are wandering without direction, they are shut in by the waste land.
4 And I will make Pharaoh's heart hard, and he will come after them and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and all his army, so that the Egyptians may see that I am the Lord." And they did so.
5 And word came to Pharaoh of the flight of the people: and the feeling of Pharaoh and of his servants about the people was changed, and they said, "Why have we let Israel go, so that they will do no more work for us?"
"Wait a minute. Now WE may have to do the work or pay someone else or conquer another tribe and all that is work, too! This is BAD."
God's message now gets lost in the reality of getting by now without the slaves they have relied on for so long. Personal greed overpowers the feeling of loss. The enormity of God becomes lost. their minds have been overwhelmed by all the power they have witnessed and they want things back the way they were, back to the security of being in control of something. of someone other than themselves.
That enormity seems to often be what makes God so hard for us to grasp. The gods of the Egyptians let them divide up nature and emotions into understandable portions. They could see a god handling the sun or the moon or wind or death but the Israelis saw God as a huge engulfing being outside of it all who created it all and was in control. They couldn't grasp the personality of God but they understood he was there, someone they couldn't fully understand but could worship.
6 So he had his war-carriage made ready and took his people with him:
7 And he took six hundred carriages, all the carriages of Egypt, and captains over all of them.
8 And the Lord made the heart of Pharaoh hard, and he went after the children of Israel: for the children of Israel had gone out without fear.
9 But the Egyptians went after them, all the horses and carriages of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them in their tents by the sea, by Pihahiroth, before Baal-zephon.
10 And when Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel, lifting up their eyes, saw the Egyptians coming after them, and were full of fear; and their cry went up to God.
11 And they said to Moses, Was there no resting-place for the dead in Egypt, that you have taken us away to come to our death in the waste land? why have you taken us out of Egypt?
12 Did we not say to you in Egypt, Let us be as we are, working for the Egyptians? for it is better to be the servants of the Egyptians than to come to our death in the waste land.
God got them safely out of Egypt. They had breathing room. They weren't complaining about the Egyptians giving them riches as they left. They weren't complaining about not having to work for the overseers any longer. They weren't unhappy about having enough to eat and drink and having a chance to live without oppression.
It was only when God sent something they couldn't handle, when he put the face-to-face with a life and death situation that they began to complain.
13 But Moses said, Keep where you are and have no fear; now you will see the salvation of the Lord which he will give you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.
14 The Lord will make war for you, you have only to keep quiet.
"Shut up and listen."
God sends the impossible for us to know He can handle the impossible. Then we will know that the every day is a simple problem for Him. So we will pursue Him in prayer every day. If He can rescue His children from the whole army of Pharaoh, He can deliver them from a bad economy or mean neighbors. That's why the Red Sea is at the beginning of their escape. He's giving them a chance to learn at the start. That there are many more complaints lets us know how easily God's lessons get forgotten.
Recall the comment that Christ couldn't perform miracles in Nazareth because of unbelief (Mark 5) and always recall that complaining is a sign of disbelief,
15 And the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? give the children of Israel the order to go forward.
16 And let your rod be lifted up and your hand stretched out over the sea, and it will be parted in two; and the children of Israel will go through on dry land.
17 And I will make the heart of the Egyptians hard, and they will go in after them: and I will be honoured over Pharaoh and over his army, his war-carriages, and his horsemen.
18 And the Egyptians will see that I am the Lord, when I get honour over Pharaoh and his war-carriages and his horsemen.
19 Then the angel of God, who had been before the tents of Israel, took his place at their back; and the pillar of cloud, moving from before them, came to rest at their back:
The Angel here may be Christ and it would serve as a perfect example of God appearing in both manifestations as evidence of the Godhead. The Angel of the Lord seems to always indicate Jesus.
Hall's Explication:
Exodus 14:19
And the Angel of the Covenant (which was Christ) removed the signs of his presence, from before the Israelites, behind them.
Now He has appeared to them as He did to their forefathers. He has blessed them beyond their understanding and they are busy complaining about their situation.
20 And it came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel; and there was a dark cloud between them, and they went on through the night; but the one army came no nearer to the other all the night.
21 And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, the Lord with a strong east wind made the sea go back all night, and the waters were parted in two and the sea became dry land.
22 And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.
Did you catch that? They walked on "dry land." That should have been muck. It had no time to dry. they were on the sea bottom at once. Animals, carts, people should have been slogging along, pulling their feet from ankle deep swamp. But God not only parted the sea, He dried the ground beneath the ocean. And they run between walls of water on either side. Waiting all the while to crash in on them. God will always smooth the way when we follow His leading.
23 Then the Egyptians went after them into the middle of the sea, all Pharaoh's horses and his war-carriages and his horsemen.
24 And in the morning watch, the Lord, looking out on the armies of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, sent trouble on the army of the Egyptians;
25 And made the wheels of their war-carriages stiff, so that they had hard work driving them: so the Egyptians said, Let us go in flight from before the face of Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.
26 And the Lord said to Moses, Let your hand be stretched out over the sea, and the waters will come back again on the Egyptians, and on their war-carriages and on their horsemen.
27 And when Moses' hand was stretched out over the sea, at dawn the sea came flowing back, meeting the Egyptians in their flight, and the Lord sent destruction on the Egyptians in the middle of the sea.
28 And the waters came back, covering the war-carriages and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh which went after them into the middle of the sea; not one of them was to be seen.
29 But the children of Israel went through the sea walking on dry land, and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left.
30 So that day the Lord gave Israel salvation from the hands of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea's edge.
31 And Israel saw the great work which the Lord had done against the Egyptians, and the fear of the Lord came on the people and they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
(BBE)
Two things:
First, that last sentence part "And they had faith in the Lord and in his servant Moses" shoul likely have the words "for a while" after it.
And second:
https://gotquestions.org/Russia-end-times.html
Question: "Does the Bible say anything about Russia in relation to the end times?"
Answer: With Russia back in the news in a big way, many people are wondering if recent events in eastern Europe have anything to do with end-times prophecy—and, if so, how? Much of the discussion has to do with an ancient prophecy from Ezekiel: “The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal”’” (Ezekiel 38:1–3). The identities of “Gog,” “Magog,” “Meshek,” and “Tubal” are the key to fully understanding the prophecy.
Gog is a person. Whoever Gog is, he is from the land of Magog and is the leader of Tubal and Meshek (some translations add “Rosh” to the list) and a confederacy of other nations: Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah (Ezekiel 38:5–6). And, whoever he is, he will have plans to “attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people,” viz., Israel (verses 11, 14, and 18). But, regardless of Gog’s plans, the Lord God is against him and will defeat him soundly (Ezekiel 38:4, 19–23; 39:3–5).
Magog is a land “in the far north,” from Israel’s point of view (Ezekiel 38:15; 39:2). Most Bible commentators interpret “Magog” as Russia—and, indeed, Russia is straight north of Israel, all the way up to the Arctic Circle. According to this view, “Rosh” is a reference to Russia, “Meshek” is either Moscow or the people north of the Black Sea (the area of southern Russia and Ukraine), and “Tubal,” which is always listed with Meshek in Scripture, is identified as a city in Siberia or an area in central Turkey.
Others see “Magog” as a general term used in Ezekiel’s day to identify barbarians living near the Black and Caspian Seas. Regardless of the exact locations of Magog, Tubal, and Meshek, there is no doubt that the general area includes portions of Russia and the former Soviet Union, and possibly some Arab countries.
So, yes, the Bible does mention Russia, although not by that name, in connection with the end times. Ezekiel 38—39 definitely refer to a nation coming from northern Asia to attack Israel. After the Cold War, Russia lost its superpower status, making the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy seem unlikely in some people’s eyes. However, recent events have shown that Russia is gaining strength, and many believe that the invasion of Crimea is just a first step in Russia’s plan to restore its dominance in that hemisphere. It is also interesting to note that, in the Soviet era, Moscow was solidly aligned with several Muslim countries in opposition to Israel. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has continued to make overtures to the Muslim world.
According to the Bible, there will come a time when Russia, in alliance with several other countries, will amass a huge army against Israel, with a view to plunder the Jews’ land. The nations aligned with Russia for this military endeavor are Persia (modern-day Iran), Put (modern-day Sudan), Cush (modern-day Libya), Gomer (part of modern-day Turkey), and Beth Togarmah (another portion of modern-day Turkey or possibly Syria). Most of these nations are currently militant Islamic states with an express hatred of Israel. Ezekiel says that, when the aggressors move against Israel, a few other nations (“Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish”) will remonstrate, as will “all her villages”—possibly colonies (Ezekiel 38:13). Sheba and Dedan are associated with areas of northern Africa. Tarshish could be a reference to Spain (which colonized much of South America), Britain (which colonized the United States), or somewhere in eastern Africa. The objections to Magog’s aggression will fall on deaf ears, however, and the invasion will continue.
Some commentators believe this war is one of the events leading up to beginning of the tribulation. Others believe it will occur close to the midpoint of the tribulation, since Israel will be “dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates” (Ezekiel 38:11)—in other words, Israel will feel secure at that time, possibly because of the covenant they have signed with the Antichrist (Daniel 9:27). Either way, this battle is distinct from the Battle of Armageddon, which occurs at the end of the tribulation.
God promises to destroy Gog’s army: “I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him” (Ezekiel 38:22). The bodies of the fallen army of Magog will be buried, but it will take over seven months to complete the macabre task (Ezekiel 39:12, 14). This supernatural judgment will have the effect of preserving Israel and turning many hearts to God: “And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 38:23). Many will be saved during the tribulation (Revelation 7), and the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38—39 will be one means by which God will bring people to a knowledge of Himself.
There is much we do not know for certain about Ezekiel’s prophecy, including the timing of these events. However, it is clear that Russia will be involved and will in fact lead an end-times league of nations to seize Israel’s land. The prophet Ezekiel comforts Israel in much the same way as Moses had centuries ago: “The LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory” (Deuteronomy 20:4).
Then: the most powerful army in the world riding chariots down on Israel to crush her under horse driven wheels, spears and arrows ready to pierce flesh. Soon: the most powerful alliance perhaps ever coming down on Israel to crush her under tank treads and leather boots, ready to pierce flesh with bullets and shrapnel. Both to suffer similar fates. the first drown by tons of water, the latter blasted by tons of fire, hail and plague.
He clearly predicted the first and clearly predicts the second. He let Israel take the Promised Land and crush every tribe there but only as He went before them, only in His way as at Jericho. When they turned from Him, He let both Assyria and Babylon conquer Israel and then let them be crushed.
Through history, one country emerges as a power then falls to another or to internal failures and ios replaced because it never learned the lessons of history, never realized it was never meant for forever. 200 years is just a sneeze in the epoch and God is the One who says " Gesundheit" to eternity.
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