Are We Approaching the War of Gog and Magog?

Dr. Michael Brown will have a long tone at 10 seconds before, followed by a short one at five seconds. Have a great afternoon, everybody. With all the tension in Israel and war on the horizon, is this what the Bible talks about?

Gog and Magog? It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, biblical scholar and cultural commentator, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Call 866-34-TRUTH to get on The Line of Fire.

And now, here's your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Are we on the edge of a massive conflict in Israel that could be a war of biblical proportions, even a war prophesied in Scripture? Is this going to be another sign that we are nearing the end of the age? What does Scripture say was actually happening in the world? How can we have a sober, God-fearing understanding of this without being sensationalistic? Michael Brown, that's what we're here to try to sort out today as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. Here, my friends, to help infuse you with faith and truth and courage, to help you stand strong on the front lines. Here's the number to call to get in the discussion, to give me your point of view or to ask me a question.

Can we talk about the larger conflict in the Middle East, aside from Scripture or maybe other Scripture relative to Israel? 866-34-8-7-8-8-4. That's 866-34-TRUTH. I might have time to get to some other subjects completely unrelated later in the broadcast, so if you want to call in and hang on and hold and see if we get your call on any other subject, same number, 866-34-TRUTH. We are working early this month to get our frontline newsletter put out, and by God's grace, later this month marks 10 years of healthy eating and healthy living. It is a miracle of intervention in my life.

I take no credit for the discipline to live this way for 10 years. It has been beautiful, life-giving, life-transforming, and we're going to talk about that in the frontline newsletter, give you some great testimony in there as well, and let you know about a special way to get Breaking the Stronghold, the food that Nancy and I wrote. So if you're not getting our digital monthly frontline newsletter, by all means, sign up today. It's free, it's digital. Go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and just click subscribe. We'll also send you updates every week with latest articles, videos dealing with the key issues of our day, all free. It's a free subscription service.

You don't have to pay for it. Thelineoffire.org, click subscribe. So I want to put things in two separate categories today and then see if they merge together. I want to put in one category what the Bible says about end times, final war, conflicts surrounding Israel. As best as we can understand it, there's always going to be a lot of dispute about prophetic scriptures and things still to come, how we should understand them. But just do our best to look at that soberly, maybe in a minimalist view, that the scriptures would seem to say at least this. So put that in one category over here. Put it in another category over here, what's happening right now in Israel, the potential threat to the Jewish state right now, what could come out of it, who the main players are.

We'll do that. So, in fact, I'm going to start with the current situation in Israel and then we're going to look at scripture and then we'll see if there is intersection. Now, I know I am quite aware that if I truly believed that every major event in the Middle East right now was tied in with biblical prophecy and I was giving you the latest prophecy update. And that was my conviction and viewpoint that it would get a lot of viewers. People really are into prophecy. Now, I'm not faulting those who may have convictions different than mine. I'm not faulting those who may read the scriptures a little differently than me.

Some weird wacko stuff, of course, I'm going to call out. But having a different view on the end times, obviously, we have a lot of different views in the body over that. But my goal is not click bait here. My goal is not to just try to titillate your interest and then not deliver the goods. My goal is just to soberly look at what the word says. And I'm certainly not going to be sensationalistic and just trying to make everything, oh, look at this, this is about to happen, this is about to happen when I don't believe it.

All right. So, we're on a journey together. We're on a journey to understand the truth of God in our lives as best as we can and honor and please Him.

And we live in this world and we're talking about massive consequences to human life here. I posted on Facebook last night just a flag of Israel and said, please pray for Israel's protection. Now, I put the flag up because I know it actually draws anti-Semites out and they're going to post some ugly stuff so we can just block them from our Facebook page. But it's a vivid reminder to others to get us to pray for Israel. Someone posted and said, do you ever call for prayer for the Palestinians, especially our Christian brothers and sisters?

Yeah, of course, for many years and repeatedly, absolutely, especially in times of conflict like this. But the fact that that question has to be asked, you can't just say, okay, right now, Israel is being threatened in a very, very serious way. We should be praying for Israel's protection. The fact that people always have to push back or attack Israel as a genocidal state just as a reminder of the spiritual battle surrounding Israel.

So let's go on the ground here. So at any given moment, even in the most peaceful day in Israel, Israel is in a state of vigilance, security vigilance, massive lacks in that security vigilance, massive errors in Israel's security led to the October 7 massacre, opened the door to the October 7 massacre. It absolutely should not have happened under any circumstances. That is a massive, massive area of reproach, a massive blot on modern Israel and, of course, has led to horrific, unimaginable suffering for the Jewish people. And as a result of Israel's war with Hamas, terrible, terrible suffering for the people of Gaza, the Palestinian people, as a result of the massacre and then Israel's retaliation against Hamas. So this was a terrible failure of Israel's security. But it's the reminder that if Israel's security was not there, that Israel would have been wiped out a long time ago. At any given day, there are tens of thousands of missiles pointed at Israel and if not for Israel's security system and Israel's deterrent, we will attack you. And Israel actually having nuclear bombs, which others in the region don't have, this is what holds back and then God's merciful intervention. This is what holds back the utter wiping out of Israel and the Jewish people. So just to understand that, you can go on a tour of Israel.

I mean, right now is a very tense time. You can still go on a tour of Israel and everything's peaceful, quiet. I remember a tour group with me. We're coming back from doing my radio broadcast one night.

So anyone that wanted to come with me at night, we walked over to a to a local place that was hosting us for the broadcast and a Christian bookstore. And I was walking back with some folks from South Africa and they said, this is safer than the streets of South Africa. We don't walk the streets late at night here in South Africa. We're just strolling around Israel. So on the one hand, there is a sense of safety and peace. But it's because of the constant vigilance and the fact that Israel is on the lookout and has the Iron Dome to intercept missiles and things like that. But we are talking about a constant onslaught, potential onslaught, enemies that want to wipe out Israel. So October 7th, you have Hamas from the west attacking. So Hamas, Gaza, that is the southwest of Israel and bordering then the Mediterranean Sea and Hamas attacks.

So Israel has been at war in Gaza to to the west. To the north is Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which is in Arabic, the party of Allah and Hamas, even though the word Hamas in Hebrew means violence. Hamas is an Islamic resistance movements, an acronym just like FBI or CIA or acronyms. So Hamas is based on an acronym of the man and the Sa in Arabic.

So it is an Islamic resistance movement that is Hamas and the West Hezbollah from the north. In Lebanon, both of these are proxies of Iran funded by Iran. And tragically, America, under the current administration, released hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran that had been frozen, released that money back to them. And Iran said, we're going to use this or we're going to use it, including for terror. This is what helped fund.

This is I'm not telling you how to vote right now. I'm just saying this is factually what happened. This helped fund Iran's war on terror. Excuse me, terror war helped fund Hezbollah, helped fund Hamas. So Hezbollah, the party of Allah, that's its name in the north, in Lebanon, which, of course, has brought real suffering for the people of Lebanon as well. So missiles, rockets coming down from there, Israelis having to flee from the north. So you've had Israelis have been uprooted from their homes in the southwest and they've been uprooted from their homes in the north.

Several hundred thousand have still been uprooted because of the ongoing war and conflict and soldiers regularly being injured, even killed, even civilians. And of course, the Hezbollah rocket did not intend this target to hit this target, but hit a a Druze neighborhood in Golan Heights. So northern Israel, what used to be in Syria's possession in northern Israel and fell on a soccer field where kids were playing soccer and at least 12 killed.

This is just an absolute horror. That's Hezbollah in the north. If you go over to the east, this is further to the east, that's Iran. That's where Iran is located, east and to the south. So Iran for the first time some weeks back came in with over 300 missiles, drones, various airborne vehicles of attack.

Sorry for my failure of words there. It came in from the east. Now Israel, with the help of other intelligence, America, Saudi Arabia, was able to intercept 99% of everything that came in. That was the first time that Iran said, OK, we're going to attack directly instead of through one of our proxies, Hezbollah and then Hamas.

If you go now further to the south of Israel and you go to Saudi Arabia and these other countries, which direction, south, east, west, depending on exactly where you're going, that's where Yemen is located. And the Houthi rebels of Yemen have been lobbying in missiles and now not just on ships that are traveling in and out, but actually hit Israel. So Israel went directly back into Yemen and hit there. So Iran is now saying after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas himself, a terrorist and responsible for mass murder, after taking him out in Tehran by all we understand, Israel's not taking credit for it, but from what we understand, finding out exactly where Haniyeh stayed in his guest house there, finding out what bed he slept in and planting an explosive device some months in advance and then waiting for the moment when he'd be in there to blow him up, this is what happened.

So the fact that it happened in Iran is now an outrage, of course, and an insult. And Iran feels it has to respond. And they have officially said they are going to attack.

And you could then just imagine everything trying to explode at once. Obviously Hamas has been greatly subdued, but it's Hezbollah much more militarily equipped than Hamas. They could be attacking from the north, Iran from the east, the Houthis from the south, and whatever Hamas could try to do from the west. This is what Israel is living with right now. This is the reality. Oh, and what is the slogan of the Houthi rebels? Are you aware of their slogan? God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.

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Welcome back to the Line of Fire, 866-344-TRUTH is the number to call, 866-348-7884. By the way, I use Ashwagandha, I take it maybe about half out to an hour before I go to sleep. This is for greater calmness, helping me to sleep better. That's one of the great challenges often with busy life and everything digital and so on that it's harder to sleep right. So you try to get into good habits before you fall asleep to help accommodate that. But Ashwagandha, that's what I take about an hour before I go to sleep and check it out for yourself, see how it works.

Remember, there's a 30-day money back guarantee on any of the products, but if you're enjoying them, great. Just know that you are supporting the Line of Fire as well as supporting your own wellness. Okay, any question regarding what's happening in Israel today or regarding the scriptures we're about to get into, by all means give us a call, 866-344-TRUTH.

If you have a question on something else, something unrelated, video of mine you saw online, some question that came up you want to bounce off me, I may have time for questions later in the show. So when it comes to biblical prophecy, when it comes to verses in the Bible that clearly have not yet been fulfilled, they have not yet come to pass, the things that are spoken of, what do we do with them? How do we interpret them? Well, some just make them entirely spiritual, that they don't think they have any literal or plain or historical meaning anymore. They should all just be interpreted and somehow in some spiritual way that points to Jesus or points to spiritual battles or spiritual realities.

And while it's always good to make spiritual application of the text, it's always a great thing to do, you've got to be careful not to take away the plain meaning of something that God meant to be plain. In other words, when the Hebrew scriptures prophesied about the death and resurrection of the Messiah, they meant his literal death and his little resurrection. When they talked about him coming from Bethlehem, they literally meant him coming from Bethlehem.

When they spoke of his supernatural birth, they literally meant he'd have a supernatural birth. When he returns, the angel said in Acts one, the same way he went, he'll come back. And it says in Zechariah 14, his feet will touch on the Mount of Olives. So he will literally come back to the city of Jerusalem in bodily form. So that tells me that you can't just spiritualize, well, Zechariah 14 is the spiritual meaning of a second coming. No, he will literally return.

These things will literally happen. Just as his first coming was literal, the second coming will be literal. So we don't want to spiritualize everything and take away the plain sense of scripture. On the other hand, we don't want to try to interpret everything in the Bible as if it's a prophecy about our own day.

That's a bit arrogant to do that. That means the generation before us was wrong and the generation before them was wrong and the generation before them was wrong. And hey, if we die before Jesus returns, it'll mean that we were wrong. So you can't you can't just make everything about a prophecy of what is happening in our day.

This is happening. This is all filled in front of our eyes because much of it clearly has not yet happened. Question is, what about those passages that speak about an end time war in Israel or an end time attack on Israel?

Like Zechariah 12, like Zechariah 14, like Ezekiel 38 and 39. Have those come to pass that the answer is certainly not. Will they still come to pass? Yes, there is a physical Israel in the land. There is a physical city of Jerusalem contested by the whole world in terms of who gets it, who it belongs to and things like that. These things are realities. And as surely as the Jewish people are back in the land, as surely as there is a Jewish Jerusalem that is there, we will surely see these other prophecies fulfilled.

The question is, is it now? Does it apply to now? And we're going to look at Ezekiel 38 and 39. But Ezekiel 38 and 39 follow Ezekiel 37, which follows Ezekiel 36. So Ezekiel 36, without parable, without mystical language, talks about God bringing the Jewish exiles back to the land. So the first obvious context of this is twenty five hundred years ago when Ezekiel himself was in exile in Babylon, a Jewish priest in exile in Babylon, and God shows him like he showed Jeremiah and then showed Daniel, reading Jeremiah, that the exiles would return as Isaiah and others had prophesied that the exiles would return. So that's the first thing that Ezekiel is clearly speaking about, that the Jewish exiles coming back from Babylon and being reestablished in the land of Israel and in the territory of Judah. That's the first level of meaning there in Ezekiel 36. So Ezekiel 37, which speaks about the dry bones coming back to life, not just physical life, but spiritual life, that that obviously has its first application of the exiles coming back from Babylon over twenty five hundred years ago. But when you read Ezekiel 36, it promises many beautiful, glorious, lofty things, including that the nation of Israel would get a new heart, that the people of Israel would now follow the Lord, and that they would be cleansed of all their uncleanness. And Ezekiel 37 obviously speaks of a glorious restoration as well. Now, Charles Spurger was absolutely right in saying that it's not a picture of the revival of the church. The dry bones vision in Ezekiel 37 is not a picture of revival in the church spiritual renewal.

It's a picture of the renewal, physical, spiritual renewal, revival of the people of Israel coming back to their land and being restored to God. He said it's plain. It's clear. And he's 100 percent right. It's plain.

It's clear. The problem is that what was prophesied over twenty five hundred years ago did not fully come to pass, which means that it still will come to pass. The words of the prophets were true. Jeremiah prophesied the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. It was in 586 B.C. He prophesied the children of Israel would go into exile.

They did in several waves, the less being 586 B.C. He said it would happen. He said they'd be in exile seven years.

They were. He said they'd return to Jerusalem. They did. He said they'd rebuild the temple.

They did. However, he also spoke of the whole nation turning to God with one heart. That did not happen. He spoke of the new covenant being established back then.

That did not happen. He spoke of the glory of God being there in such a way that the nations would come to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel. That did not happen back then in that way. So the point of the matter is simply this, that there were things that all the prophets prophesied about the return of the Jewish people from exile and the glorious restoration that would be. Isaiah said all flesh will see the glory of the Lord together. And yet it was only a relatively small percentage of the people that came back.

Most, the majority, apparently stayed in Babylon. And the return did not have the expected glory, which means it is still to be fulfilled. That these words were not just the prophet's imagination.

They were not all conditional. In fact, God said, I'm going to do this even though you're in sin. I'm going to do this even though your hearts are still hard.

I'm going to do it because my name is being blasphemed. So we have seen now the ongoing fulfillment of these prophecies with Jewish people returning to the land. Just like there's a first and second coming of Jesus, there is the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecies from exile. And the ongoing fulfillment in our day, which also promises the spiritual restoration, the turning of the Jewish people to Jesus, Yeshua, their Messiah. We can expect all these things to happen and come to pass. And again, the sign that it's happened in front of our eyes is massive.

It's absolutely massive. And the world hatred against Israel is absolutely massive. And the fact that there is such hostility from so many quarters and that the October 7th massacre, rather than generating more sympathy for the Jewish people, stirred a rise in Jew hatred around the world and hatred of Israel.

And libelous attacks, slanderous attacks on Israel. So this is all part of what we understand from scripture. The question is, this war that's described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that has not yet happened.

Gog, Magog. Is that what we are seeing? Is that about to unfold? Personally, I do not believe we are at that point for a number of reasons. But I believe we are at another critical moment in the modern history of Israel. One with great implications for many that can bring great suffering on many. So we need to be praying, God, you will be done, you will be done. It will be a restraint on the powers of evil and darkness that want to murder and destroy. So we are going to come back and start reading from Ezekiel 38 on the other side of the break.

Hey friends, Michael Brown here. My delight to serve as your voice for moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We are living in such urgent times today, friends, that all of us are in the line of fire. There's a target on your back.

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You could be silenced. I'm here to say, friends, that I am not about to be silenced and I don't believe you are either. It is time for us to stand up. It is time for us to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push back in Jesus name, not fighting the way the world fights. No, overcoming evil with good, overcoming hatred with love, overcoming the flesh with the power of the Spirit, overcoming lies with truth. And that's what we're here to do on the Line of Fire broadcast.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH. I said a moment ago we'd start reading Ezekiel 38, 39 on the other side of the break. Then I saw our friend Yoni Yonatan from Israel, former ultra-orthodox Jew, and he's called in to discuss some of his spiritual search with us and talk about just being in the land right now. I think it's important that we hear from Yoni, just get a perspective, see what's on his heart, and then we'll look at the Scriptures together. Yonatan, how are you doing, my friend? Hey, hey, Dr. Brown.

How are you doing? So nice to hear your voice. Yes, same here. Same here. Yes, I always try to get on the show on Thursday, but in Israel it's like 10 o'clock in the afternoon.

So it's a little bit problematic for me, so I'm glad I managed to do it now. Yes, so what's going on, Yoni? Well, I'm one of the optimist ones, and everybody is very stressed out in Israel, as you can imagine, because I just told my father, I don't know any other Western nation that people wake up in the morning, and maybe some other nation will strike us with ballistic missiles and drones, and it's crazy.

I told you before that I'm a recovered pothead and an alcoholic, and I don't know who, I've been killing for like five, six years, but lately I cannot go to sleep without having a drink or something, because it's so stressful, and so, yeah, I don't know. And I'm the optimist one, because I don't think that Iran or Hezbollah will go full out with Israel, because they know that the retaliation will be even more severe. So, again, I don't want to go into a geopolitical conversation, but Israel has the capability to hit back ten times what Hezbollah can do and ten times what Iran can do, but still Iran and Hezbollah can hit Israel really, really hard, and, yeah, it's not nice. Like yesterday, my father, I lived near my father, and he called me in the middle of the day, and like, we have to go buy water, and we have to go buy canned food, we have to go buy, and I told him, you cannot prepare for that.

He is a believer in God, so I told him, you need to just relax and be more faithful, because there's nothing really you can do about it, but me as an agnostic, I don't know, I don't really know what to do, so I'm hoping to do the best. I'm hoping that the IDF and the Iron Dome and the guy that did the interception missile will do the job, and if Iran strikes us, most of the missile will be intercepted, but still, it's not easy. Yeah, Yoni, what was the feeling when Tel Aviv got hit a few days back?

Well, actually, I live in Ramadan, so it's not that far, it's like maybe seven kilometers away. In the middle of the night, it was like 3 a.m., I heard a large bomb, a large bang, and living in Israel, you can identify if it's something like an interceptor or something, and I knew something big, and I went into a WhatsApp group to have all the updates, and somebody said it's a drone, and I was like, what are you talking about, a drone in Tel Aviv? It's never happened, it's like a declaration of war. And, yeah, after a couple of, 10 minutes, somebody posted a picture of the drone, and that was crazy, actually, that was crazy, but last time, when Iran attacked Israel, they actually gave us like a week notice, because I guess they didn't really want to open a war, they just want to do something.

It was symbolic, they had to do it for pride's sake, but it was more symbolic. Yeah, yeah, and so my brother, who is really a devoted guy, and he lived in Jerusalem in a higher place, and Jerusalem is in the east, and Iran, its rocket has come from the east, so he was sitting in his porch in the middle of the night with his family, and all of a sudden he told me it was like fireworks, but it was silent, and he saw the missiles coming, like 10s and 10s and 10s of missiles, and he started to say Tehillim songs, and he started to pray, and he saw it all from his porch over his head, and it's crazy, and last time we had a lot of luck, because a lot of the missiles misfired, and a lot of the missiles got intercepted over Jordan, and again, I don't know what Iran is planning, and I hope they are not wanting to go to all over the world, but in the last couple of days I really had a hard time, like everybody else in Israel, like today I went to the market, to like a supermarket, there was no water bottles, because in Israel, whenever there is a situation like that, everybody is buying water bottles and toilet paper, because those two things are, I don't know why, but everybody is buying it, like I saw a guy with a cart full of water bottles, so it's tense, intense, and it's a fact to me, as I say, I'm trying not to drink alcohol, and I didn't drink maybe four years, even on Shabbat, when everybody drinks a little bit like toast, making a toast, everybody knows I'm not drinking, and if somebody wants to buy me something, they buy me a non-alcoholic beer, and I cut away all my drinking friends, but in the last couple of days, I can't go to sleep without it, I just, I can't. And do you still find it impossible to pray? I find it a little bit, like, how do I say, like, hypocritical, like, okay, so now you come to me, you know, there is a nice verse, I think it's in, you're probably telling me, when I think it's, it says, so I think it's, and there is another verse, another verse, and God says, it's like, I feel like, well, God is, I don't know, is there, and not because, I think I'm getting hard, I'm approaching him, like.

But here, so here's the way to do it. So, I say if for your sake. If he's there, he knows everything, he knows what's happening in your life, and he is a compassionate father, Psalm 103, that he knows we're just dust, he remembers our frame, and that being the case, he already knows what's happening in you. And if you just said, God, I don't know if you're there, I used to, I don't know, if you're real, I really do want to know you and understand you, and please you, and I could really use your help, I just, I don't know what's true and what isn't true, and I just want you to help me know the truth, and you know, obviously, if it was true, I say if again for you, that Jesus, Yeshua, really died for you, and really can make a way for you to know God in a way you never knew him before, that would be the most wonderful thing of all, to have real peace in the midst of the storm. You know, Isaiah 26, that he keeps us in perfect peace when our minds are stayed on him, and Yeshua says in the New Testament, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, in other words, the same peace he experiences, he gives to us, that we can experience in the midst of the storm, that would be wonderful, you just don't know if it's true, that's your issue, and the way you knew God before was not something that you could, someone you could relate to and love, so it's, you just be honest, he knows what's going on anyway, it's not like, okay God, right now I'm in big trouble, I got in big trouble gambling, and now I owe a lot of money, so please help me out of the mess, you're just saying, it's terrifying living right now, and it's very difficult, and you know, you talked about Friends, you lost at the Nova Music Festival, and you know I was there in June, visited the grounds there, just cried with others, I can't imagine the depth of loss experienced, so it's very hard living, especially at a time like this in Israel without God, just be honest, God I don't know if I'm talking to the wall, or to you, but if you're there, I could really use some help, because I'm having problems, and I don't think you want me to be living like this, if you're really there, it can't hurt to do it, right, if you're praying to the wall, you're praying to the wall, right, you know you're not making a fool of yourself, you're just asking honest questions. But again, the way I was growing thoughts about God, and about, it's like, there's a saying in Hebrew, God is not an ATM, like you cannot just come to God, yes, I understand, or we don't depend on a miracle, no I understand that, but here's the deal, many times Yoni, we have to kind of come to the end of ourselves, before we recognize our need for Him, so you're not just saying bail me out, protect me, I don't want a bomb to fall on me, you're saying God I need help in my life, so many times we just don't realize it, we become self-confident, or we think we can do fine without Him, and that's not reality, all of us need Him, not all of us realize that we need Him, so sometimes we go through the hard times so that we realize we need Him, it's not that He's an ATM machine, it's that, you know, He's named Samuel, He's exceedingly found the times of trouble in Psalm 46, so don't hyper analyze, don't get too hard on yourself, just where you are, start where you are, and if you're talking to the wall, you're talking to the wall, it's not going to hurt you, but if you're talking to God, He's going to pay attention, and who knows what He'll do in your life, and you know whenever you call in, you get a lot of Christians that are praying for you, as always we ask for our friend Yoni. Hey, you've been on a journey. It's hard for me to retouch from like, I was growing up in the Littain, I don't know how can you explain it to the audience, but it's kind of moments, I don't know if this is the right example, but it's really like, I had a rabbi who told me once, you think when you're doing what you're doing, and I'm not, I didn't kill anybody, I was just going to parties, and you know, you think now you're doing what you're doing, that when you need God, He will be there for you?

No, He will not. If you have a son that will speak on you, would you help him? Yeah, well here's the thing, right, so let me say this, and then I've got to get back to scripture, but I wanted to take your call. Of course, read, I'm sure you have a New Testament or can get it, or just get online, Bible Gateway, read Luke 15. Would you do that, Yoni? Your assignment, and then call me back after you read it in a few days or weeks.

Luke chapter 15, Luke 15 in the Gospels, read it, and then get back to me. Let's pray for Yoni. This is Michael Ellison, founder of Trivita Wellness. I'm always thrilled to offer a new product from Trivita that is science-supported with equivalent doses per serving that follows the science, and that is true of our KSM 66 Ashwagandha with its protective process from farm to manufacturing plant. The KSM 66 has 24 published gold standard clinical trials in reducing stress, enhancing sleep, and increased vitality. In a recent Harris Poll, 87% of Americans feel stressed. I know the effects of chronic stress.

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Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So again, friends, pray for our friend Yonatan. So he was raised an ultra-Orthodox Jew in Israel. It would be called Haredi ultra-Orthodox. If I understood what he was saying, right at the end it would have been Lithuanian Jewish background. So ultra-ultra-Orthodox left that, it's called, going off the derek, off the path, and ended up on drugs, drinking, which happens with many.

They've been raised this incredibly structured, disciplined, closed community, and then you break away from there, kind of lose your bearings. Free for those things for some years, but agnostic. Watched my debates with rabbis, listened to my teaching, enjoys the teaching about Yeshua, but is not a believer. So let's pray for him. What a joy it would be for him to really come to know God in a personal way and find forgiveness through Jesus Yeshua and hear him call in with that testimony. I look forward to it by the grace of God.

It'll be amazing. But I think it's so important you hear from someone in Israel just giving you an honest report about where things stand. So Ezekiel 38, we've said it follows 36, the prophecy of the return from exile, which was partially fulfilled in Ezekiel's day and is still being fulfilled in our day, then pictured in prophetic symbolism with the valley of dry bones and the dry bones coming to life in chapter 37 of Ezekiel, partially fulfilled 2,500 years ago, still finding fulfillment in our day and future fulfillment still to come. Now, chapter 38, 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 Meshech and Tubal prophesy against him and say, this is what the sovereign Lord says, I'm against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. There are some translations traditions that rather than saying chief prince, say prince of Rosh, thinking this has something to do with Russia, but the best understanding of the text and in the vast majority of translations and commentaries understands it to mean chief prince, Rosh meaning chief, as opposed to prince of Rosh.

Magog is mentioned as one of the descendants of Gomer in Genesis chapter 10 verse 2, but we do not know specifically who Gog is and what the land of Magog is. There is debate about it, what is it meant to symbolize, what is it to speak about. This has not yet happened though. Historically, this has not yet happened and there's nothing in it telling me just to interpret this as being somehow of symbolic meaning. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army, your horses, your horsemen fully armed and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords, Persia, Cush and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer with all its troops and Beit Chagarma from the far north with all its troops, the many nations with you. So from the far north, that can obviously include Russia, but when you see here reference to Persia, so that's modern day Iran, so it's included here among the combatants and in Israel speaking of coming from the north, it could be Babylon which is actually to the southeast, but in order to come into Israel, you go up around the Euphrates and come down from the north or it could be literally enemies in the north, be it Syria or be it Turkey or Russia or something like that, and then enemies from the east like Iran, they could all be included in this. That's why many people think, is this it?

Is this it? Get ready, be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you and take command of them. After many days, you'll be called to arms. In future years, you'll invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate.

They'd be brought out from the nations and now all of them live and safe to you and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up advancing like a storm. You'll be like a cloud covering the land. And then it says this, this is what the Sovereign Lord says, on that day thoughts will come into your mind and you'll devise an evil scheme. You'll say, I will invade a land of unwalled villages. I'll attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people, all of them living without walls, without gates and bars.

I'll plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations rich in livestock and goods living at the center of the land. And then God will fight back, Israel will triumph and these enemies will be defeated. Well, number one, number one, Israel is not living in unwalled villages and Israel is not a peaceful and unsuspecting people, all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. Israel is very heavily protected. Israel has a protection fence with walls in part, separating from potential terror attacks on Judea and Samaria, West Bank. And Israel is heavily fortified in many, many other ways and is on the alert and has the Iron Dome and other methods of self-defense. So it's anything but just living peacefully and living in unwalled villages, et cetera. So this is speaking of one or two potential time periods. It's either speaking of a future time period before Jesus returns where there'll be such peace that walls will be taken down, that barriers will be removed and that it'll really seem like we don't have to be hostile anymore and that Israel can say, okay, we didn't have a wall here before, we didn't have a fence here before, we didn't have some of these barriers here before, we can remove them. Think of flying, those of you who fly a lot, remember the days before you had to, say, take your shoes off or take your belt off, going through security, or you can have liquids because you're going through security, just very small amounts of liquids.

Why? Well, there was bombs made with liquid or the shoe bomber and the belt could have some metallic or something potentially, weapon or whatever the reasons would be. There was a time when you didn't have as much security but you had your first terror attacks and planes blowing out of the sky, so now you had to have more x-rays and this and that and the other thing. So the fact of the matter is there was a time when you could fly without all the security checks that we currently have, but now they're in place.

What if there was a way to eliminate this, this, this? You know, I go to TSA pre-check, I have that service because I fly so much, I don't have to take my shoes off. I don't have to take certain things, I don't have to take electronics out of my bags, things like that. So maybe, just in Israel, things would get to the point where you don't have to have guards before you go in the mall checking, okay, why do you have a backpack?

Okay, let's open up that backpack, let's see what's in there. You wouldn't have to do that. Maybe there could be such peace that you travel back and forth to Saudi Arabia, Israel to Bahrain, Israel to Qatar, just in and out, coming out of Jordan and Egypt without all the security and so checkpoints disappear. The fact is we're not there, we're not there. Therefore, this description does not work. It is a land that had long been uninhabited, now reinhabited. That absolutely is relevant. You say, no, it refers back to after they returned from exile, but no such war like this ever happened after the Jewish people returned from exile. Yes, Rome ultimately destroyed Jerusalem in the two Jewish revolts, 66 to 70 and the 132 to 135.

Yes, that happened, that's true. But you didn't have this coalition of nations and that, no, that never happened. And God promised deliverance from this war, whereas he didn't deliver Israel from Rome in the first and second Jewish revolts.

So this has not yet come to pass. It does not apply to Israel's current situation now. Now, there's another way to understand it, which is based on Revelation 20, which again, is filled with symbolism and mystical interpretation of scripture that Revelation 20 speaks of a time at the end of the millennial kingdom. So not even for this age, not a final Armageddon before Jesus returns. Rather, Revelation 20 speaks of a time when the whole world is filled with the glory of the Lord, the thousand year reign of the Messiah. It mentions the thousand years six times and God's people ruling and reigning over a glorified earth, not yet fully transformed earth, but the glory of God filling it, the nation streaming to Jerusalem to meet with God. At the end of that, Satan's loosed and there is an all out war and attack, hordes of nations coming to attack and then final destruction.

Then we go into the eternal age. And it mentions in Revelation 20, Gog and Magog. So some would say it's speaking of a war at the end of the millennial kingdom, but there are problems with that as well. And Revelation so freely quotes from different passages in the Old Testament, not in a chronological way, but in terms of what it represents. This represents a war of hostile forces against the people of God.

That's why it's quoted in Revelation 20. The idea that there's this massive cleanup at the end of this, if you read through Ezekiel 38 and 39, there is this massive cleanup. And when you read through the text about this massive cleanup, that doesn't seem to have a place at the end of the millennial kingdom when we now go into eternity where there is final judgment and now new heavens and new earth. Whereas this would make good sense that Jesus returns in bringing judgment on the wicked and the millennial kingdom begins with final accounting for those who've been alive. The millennial kingdom begins with the cleanup from the final war.

In any case, we are not at this position where this war is about to happen. Israel is not dwelling in that sense again on walled villages, peaceful, unsuspecting people. Plus, as I see promises about the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, we still have maybe two and a half billion people don't even know Jesus existed. There is a fullness there that must come, a greater harvest of souls that we must see. And in addition to that, the promise of Israel's salvation, right now, Jewish people who believe in Jesus are maybe 1% of the Jewish population worldwide.

Within Israel, less than half of a percent of the total population that we know of. There is much more to happen. I believe the harvest will continue to grow.

So things could change suddenly. And the conflict in Israel is very intense and the implications could be massive. But no, I do not see it as part of this final war that is spoken of in Ezekiel 38 and 39. A time to really pray for Israel and for God's hand to restrain and surrounding nations and for mercy on all and for many to turn to him. But no, not dwarf gog magog, according to scripture. ...