Posted on 10/19/2009 2:29:30 PM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
Turkey is a beautiful, wonderful and fascinating country.
The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament either in Turkey (then “Asia Minor”), or to the churches located throughout that remarkable land. The Apostle John saw in Turkey the startling vision of the End Times that became the Book of Revelation. The country later became the seat of the Ottoman Islamic empire. Later it became a modern democracy, a NATO ally, a friend of Israel, and the original “Reformer” country. I have been there numerous times and shot part of the Inside The Revolution documentary film there last year.
But something is amiss. Just back from a family vacation abroad, I have come home to find the international news media filled with stories about escalating tensions between Turkey and Israel. Over the past 10 days or so:
These are troublesome developments on two levels.
First, they indicate that Turkey is not simply turning against Israel but doing so, in part, to curry favor with an emerging Russia-Iranian-Syrian alliance.
Second, these developments are consistent with Bible prophecies found in Ezekiel 38-39 which indicate that in the “last days” Turkey (identified in the prophecies as “Gomer” and part of “Beth Togarmah”) will join a Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel. While it remains too early to draw any conclusions on whether the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies will come to pass in our lifetime, much less soon, it is not to early to be concerned about the pivot Turkey is making away from Israel and toward her enemies, and ours.
Please pray for the leaders of Turkey to resist the temptation so many other world leaders are having to turn against Israel. Please pray, too, for the gospel to spread throughout all of Turkey and that many in that country find the amazing love and grace and forgiveness found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Finally, please pray for the leaders of Israel to have the wisdom to know how best to handle the current tensions with Turkey.
Hopefully this Trojan Horse country will never get into the EU.
Thanks for posting this. Bookmark for later follow up.
FUTURIST FANTASY ALERT!!
There is no Russian-Iranian-Turkish last days alliance taught in the Bible.
Is your real name Mahmoud?
Blogger, you have no idea.
CAUTION: KNEE-JERK PRETERIST DENIAL COMMENTS
Israel as “the canary in the coal mine”.
Magog, Meshech, and Tubal = Russia
Persia = Iran
Cush = Ethiopia
Put = Libya
Gomer = Turkey
Beth-togarmah = Turkey, Armenia, and the Turkish-speaking people of Asia Minor
Do you have any evidence to back up your stance on this issue? I don't wish to argue, I am just interested in how you came to your conclusion ; )
What Bible scholars are we talking about here? Please be specific.
Besides, even if these designations were geographically correct, there is nothing in the text to indicate these are modern nations in some unholy alliance against modern Israel.
Do you have any evidence to back up your stance on this issue?
Actually, I don’t need any evidence. Those making the claim such as found in the OP are the ones who need to supply the evidence to support their novel assertions. My view is that the claim is an invention of modern-day futurism without clear, biblical justification.
Nice try, but you cannot hide from the fact that there is no modern Russian-Iranian-Turkish last days alliance taught in the Bible.
It just ain’t there, my FRiend. It only exists in the fantasy world of futurist eschatology.
Oh. My friend? You must be John McCain. Try reading Ezekiel 38-39. It’s there.
I have, many times. Other than my Bible and the Holy Spirit, what else must I bring to the text to discover your theory? Given the tools at hand, I must confess that it’s not there.
The eminent Hebrew scholars C. F. Keil and Wilhelm Gesenius both hold that the better translation of Rosh in Ezekiel 38:2-3 and 39:1 is as a proper noun referring to a specific geographical location.[9] Gesenius, who died in 1842 and is considered by modern Hebrew scholars as one of the greatest scholars of the Hebrew language, unquestionably believed that Rosh in Ezekiel was a proper nounidentifying Russia.
Clyde E. Billington, Jr., has written a series of three scholarly articles in atheological journal presenting extensive historical, geographical and toponymic[6]evidence for why Rosh should be and is traced to the Russian people of today.
There are many other references to other scholars in that series of articles, those are just a few examples.
There are two key words in Ezekiel 38, the words “latter years” in verse 8 and “latter days” in verse 16. Therefore, the events that take place in Ezekiel 38 and 39 are “latter day” events.
I have been told that Ezekiel 39:8 is said to directly parallel to the prophecy in Revelation 16:17. In addition, Ezekiel 39:8 cites God as saying “It is done” when the events of Ezekiel 38-39 are fulfilled, and these exact same words are used in Revelation 16:11. As a final argument, in Ezekiel 39:17-21, God calls for the beasts and birds to eat the flesh of the fallen combatants and in Revelation 19:17-21, He does exactly the same. Therefore, the parallelism of these chapters is unmistakable.
So...while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I believe I will take God's Word at face value.
Excellent, excellent job, ravingnutter.
Oh, I thought you were talking about real scholars, not futurists with an axe to grind like Tommy Ice. :-)
So, while there may be some connection between Bible names and certain ancient people, it is a logical fallacy to push that connection millennia into the future and claim it is speaking of modern peoples and places. It is biblically unjustified.
Therefore, the parallelism of these chapters is unmistakable.
That may be, but none of it point conclusively to anything having to do with the modern states of Russia, Turkey, etc. That’s where you are reading stuff into the passage.
So...while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, I believe I will take God's Word at face value.
But the sad part is that you are not. You have only confused the opinions of others with the Word of God.
Right...everyone is wrong but you and you won’t provide evidence of your assertions. You only want to kill the messengers and accuse me of not understanding God’s Word, when in fact, the majority of scholars throughout the centuries support my position based directly on the Bible passages. Whatever...it’s your soul at stake, not mine.
I’ll take that as a bad case of hyperbole, unless you wish to prove it.
Is it at all possible to see that what these scholars are saying has no direct bearing on the issue which got us here, i.e., that modern Russia, Turkey etc is found on the pages of the Bible?
Is it possible to see that what was referred to as “Scythians” thousands of years ago has no relationship to any modern people group or nation?
Is it possible that Tommy Ice and his friends at the Pre-Trib Research Center has seriously misread and misrepresented what scholars have said just to prove their unbiblical futurist system?
Is it possible that you don’t have all the facts right and are feeling a bit uncomfortable having to defend something that is really not in the Bible?
You may have the Bible there, but I don’t believe the Holy Spirit would lead you into believing something had happened or wasn’t going to happen that He said would.
Not if He actually said it, no. But I check carefully.
Not carefully enough.
LOL
Perhaps, but that has not been demonstrated here at all.
I'm waiting for the sleight of hand where you pull a rabbit out of your hat. Maybe one of your latter days futurists can help you out.
It is more than you have given “Blah, blah, blah...it isn’t there! It isn’t there I tell you, you FUTURIST!!! Blah, blah, blah, if I repeat it enough maybe it will be true.”
1)Ezekiel gives a time (verse 8) the latter years
2)Ezekiel gives a condition - Israel is in her land and she is dwelling in seeming peace
3)Ezekiel gives an aftermath all but 1/6th of the invading army is destroyed. Israel buries the enemy’s dead for 7 months and burns their weapons for 7 years. And the nations know that God is the Lord.
Now, considering that Ezekiel prophesied during the Babylonian captivity- the prophecy is either future or something that will never be fulfilled - in which case Scripture isn’t infallible and God lied.
Just because it doesn’t fit your construct you can not ignore this Scripture and any honest and normal reading of it will support futurism, not amillapreteristmakeitupasyougojustsolongasitdoesntsmackoffuturismism or whatever it is you hold to.
Why bother with a brick wall.
When confronting a brick wall and all you have is a feather, I can appreciate the frustration.
If you were trying to demonstrate something that was actually in the Bible, as opposed to made up by the prophecy gurus, your task would be much easier.
It seems to me the question is where we are on the timeline. How much of prophesy has been fulfilled and what is to come. A large amount of Scripture is about the end of days and it's there to help us.
I think it's a tough subject because some things are not clear. The nations aligned against Israel are tribes that are now found in various nations. All of these tribes are ancestors from Noah's grandsons except Persia.
Excellent question.
Would love to see an extensive answer.
If anyone finds one, please post it!
I can buy that the timeline is a matter of interpretation (except with God). But, I don’t think anything in history to date matches Ezekiel 38. Either it is future or it ain’t going to happen and God lied or the Bible isn’t His Word.
Ahhhhhh . . .
sounds like you’ve gone from tossing out verses to tossing out whole chapters and books of the authentic Bible.
Do you still claim to be a “Christian?”
I didn’t realze that Calvin taught folks
to DISBELIEVE UTTERLY
STRAIGHT FORWARD SCRIPTURE!
amazing.
Maybe thee’s a switch behind the right ear that could be turned to the ON position?
GOD’S WORD ALWAYS WINS OVER EVERYTHING ELSE WITH ME, TOO.
It is biblically unjustified.
#############
What a cheekily bazen untruth.
That’s not very nice to say about the president. Even if it is true.
I can see from your response that your conclusions are apparently based on a whole bunch of unspecified presuppositions. E.g.,
1)Ezekiel gives a time (verse 8) the latter years
How is the phrase “latter years” or “latter days” or “latter anything” used in the Bible? Please be specific.
2)Ezekiel gives a condition - Israel is in her land and she is dwelling in seeming peace
Let's be specific. Are you referring to this phrase?
You will say, 'I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates'--
But those conditions do not exist today, unless you are taking liberties with the text. So your point would be?
3)Ezekiel gives an aftermath all but 1/6th of the invading army is destroyed. Israel buries the enemy’s dead for 7 months and burns their weapons for 7 years. And the nations know that God is the Lord.
You are very good at pointing out broad generalities, but fail to deal with some thorny specifics. E.g.,
"Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they will make fires with them for seven years.The prophecy speaks of ancient implements of war. Implements that have not been seen in Israel or any of here alleged modern opponents in hundreds of years. Implements that stretch credibility when some futurists insist they are the tools of a future great battle.
And all the counties and people spoken of are ancient peoples. Peoples long since passed from the face of history. The only place they exist these days are in the imaginative writing of futurist prophecy gurus.
Of course when we read this prophecy, (or any other prophecy) in the light of the fuller revelation of the NT, we see that Christ is the central figure. He is the one seated on the “mountains of Israel”. He is the one crushing His enemies and vindicating His people, Israel, even today.
The true children of Israel, the faithful remnant, are seated with Christ even now on the true Mount Zion, in the heavenly Jerusalem. We have been raised up with Him and reign with Him in His glory.
Ezekiel 38 & 39 is not about Israel. It is about the God who has saved Israel, even the Lord Jesus Christ, and has made His covenant, a new covenant, them His people.
As long as you keep reading OT prophecies with carnal eyes and not in the spirit of the new covenant, you will continue to see thing only as the apostate generation of Jesus' day saw things. And they missed the blessings and were cut off from the Root.
Is your theology Israel-centic or Christocentric?
Either it is future or it ain’t going to happen and God lied or the Bible isn’t His Word.
#################
INDEED.
THAT’S THE CRUX OF IT.
And they somehow have such rubbery minds or rubbery ‘bibles’ or rubbery histries or rubbery dictionaries that they persistently miss the plain truth of Scripture.
Mystifying . . . except for willful blindness . . . delusion . . . stubborn bias.
THANKS FOR THIS.
Some of us have been predicting that Turkey would turn on Israel for years.
Scripture is clear about that.
Of course, some folks prefer to think that none of us END TIMERS could successfully predict the sun rising tomorrow.
See post #37. You must have a definition of "honest and normal" that is different from most honest and normal folks, since most honest and normal folks have not bought into the fabrications of futurism.
The tank armor of Russia is organic, burnable.
I'm right there with you brother! We all know God doesn't lie and the Bible is His Word.
I believe the war of Gog and Magog on Israel in Ezekiel 38 is a different war than the war of Gog and Magog in Revelation 20 because in the latter Satan gathers all nations together to battle and in Ezekiel 38 a limited number of nations are mentioned. If this is so, it would seem that the first war will preceed the Tribulation. The opposition to the Temple being rebuilt would probably melt away due to God defeating this army of Gog.
Did space aliens implant that thought when you were being probed?
I agree with that perspective.
No, it came out a couple of decades ago . . . some advanced armor system that turned out to be organic and burnable.
I think Israeli Moussad may have discovered it. I forget.
Thanks
So nice to see that perspective 100% WRONG again.
Given your track record for accuracy, I'll need more than just your word.
I think Israeli Moussad may have discovered it. I forget.
Or Bullwinkle Moose or Mickey Mouse. They all sound alike.
100% WRONG again.
Is this a joke? Do you take yourself seriously, cuz it's hard for the rest of us?
Until then I'll just your comment as a regurgitated space alien thought implant.
Tough tacos.
rabid naysayers seem to crave, feed on, obsess on untruth . . . better to leave them to it sometimes.
Besides everyone has access to Google or dogpile.com
You've been pegged as a repository of utter nonsense.
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