Storm Clouds Rising, Part 8

Storm Clouds Rising

Setting the Stage for the Rise of Antichrist and the End of the Age

A new look at Ezekiel 38-39

Aftermath

The question has often been debated in modern prophetic circles: Will the enemies of Israel really ride on horses and be armed with swords, bows and arrows, and spears? Or is this just the only description a prophet from 2500 years past could lend to what he saw? There are scenarios being suggested today in which a nuclear-induced electromagnetic pulse could render modern technologies useless in warfare, as well as in every day life. I’m also reminded of the words of Albert Einstein: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Will the war of Gog and Magog employ primitive or modern weapons, literal bows and arrows, or Arrow Missiles? I suppose it could happen either way, and I suppose that neither really matters that much. We simply know that the war will be fought, with devastating consequences and a horrible aftermath that paves the way for the end of everything as we know it.

Whatever the nature of the weapons used by Gog’s Horde, Ezekiel tells us that those who dwell in Israel’s cities will go out and collect the weapons, set them on fire and burn them for seven years. They won’t need to cut down any trees or take wood from any forests, because they will make fires with the weapons of their enemies. Some have gone to great lengths to describe modern weapons being made from wood or other combustible materials. Others have suggested that the fuel from modern war machines is what is burned. Again, it doesn’t really matter, except to understand that the entire nation of Israel will plunder and pillage those who wanted to do it first to them, and that the spoil will provide them with fuel for seven years. It is possible that this will be God’s way of supplying fuel for His people when Antichrist cuts off the fossil fuel supply to the world.

There will also be the disposal of the bodies to consider. Long ago, Ezekiel saw God’s solution to the clean-up in the aftermath of Gog’s invasion of Israel. The birds of the air and the beasts of the field will be supernaturally summoned to the battlefield, gathering from all sides to feast on the sacrificial meal provided them by the Lord. Following the feast of the earth’s scavengers, the entire population of Israel will join in the clean-up work. Ezekiel says the burial process will last seven months. There will be no logistical way to bury the dead in individual graves, and someone will make the decision to have one mass grave, a valley somewhere in which to bury the remains of their dead adversaries.

That valley will be found in the newly acquired lands of Edom, east of the Jordan River. The ancient road known as the King’s Highway passes through the Valley of Abarim parallel to Jordan and the Dead Sea, and it will be in this valley that the bodies are interred, and afterward it will be called the Valley of Hamon Gog, which means the Valley of the Gog’s Horde. A city there will be named Hamonah, and whenever remains of any of the fallen are found afterward, they will be marked for collection and burial. In this way, the land will be cleansed from the stench of death.

Finally, in Ezekiel 39:21-22, God says, “I will set my glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward.” In the aftermath of these devastating wars that revolve around Israel, the whole world will know that God is indeed the Lord. In Israel, they will worship Him, but in the rest of the world they will despise Him, because the world has always hated Israel and their God. From that day forward, it is a race against time to another battle, the battle that will settle once and for all who is God and who is not—the Battle of Armageddon.