5th
Doom : Post-
Millennium
Doom of Gog and Magog
Rev
20:7-9
7...., Satan
will be let out of his prison.
8
He will go out to deceive the nations of the world and gather them
together, with Gog and Magog, for battle-a mighty host, numberless as
sand along the shore.
9
They will go up across the broad plain of the earth and surround
God's people and the beloved city of Jerusalem on every side. But
fire from God in heaven will flash down on the attacking armies and
consume them. TLB
Why let him loose?
“The
Devil is let loose. He who lets him loose is, of course, the same who
bound him, and sealed him in the prison of the Abyss. God uses even
the wickedest of beings, and overrules the worst depravity, to his
own good and gracious ends. He allows Satan liberty, and denies him
liberty, and gives him liberty again, not because the Devil or the
Devil's malice is necessary to him, but to show his power to bring
good out of evil, to make even the worst of creatures praise him, and
to turn their very wickedness to the furtherance of the purposes they
would fain defeat.
It
seems like a great pity, after the world has rested for a thousand
years, that this arch-enemy of its peace should again be let loose
upon it. But there seems to be some sort of necessity for it.
The statement to John was, that "he must be loosed a little time" (Rev 10:3). Some interest of righteousness and moral government renders it proper that he should be allowed this last limited freedom. If for nothing else, it is not unimportant that he should have this opportunity to prove how little an imprisonment of a thousand years had served to change him, or reform his malignity. Even the Devil is granted a final trial to make a better record to himself, if so minded. But neither judgment nor mercy has the least effect. He is, and remains to the last, the same depraved and wicked being, and employs even the little time of freedom before he is cast into perdition in tempting, seducing, and deceiving the happy and peaceful world.
Perhaps, too,
it was necessary for the millennial nations to be taught that, even
after having been so far redeemed as to live a thousand years of holy
obedience, they still are unable to stand without the special help
and grace of Almighty God. At
any rate, this brief period of Satan's last freedom proves, that he
is still Satan, and that man is still man, after a thousand years of
bonds and imprisonment for the one, and a thousand years' experience
of next thing to Paradise for the other; the Devil being just as
eager to tempt and deceive, and man liable to be tempted and
deceived.
Nor
can it be of small account to the after ages, or for the generations
to whom it is foretold, that the full demonstration of these facts
should be made before things are finally settled into the eternal
state. Hence, Satan is let loose for a little time.”
(from
The Apocalypse: Exposition of the Book of Revelation)
Revelation
20:7-10
To
recap:
Just who Gog and
Magog are we may not be able to tell (but
many scholars have identified it to be modern day Russia). A
thousand years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity are likely to
make great changes in the distribution and locations of peoples. But
the allusion to the" corners of the earth" as the regions
whence these rebels come, sufficiently indicates that they are among
the hinder most of peoples and the least advanced and cultured among
the millennial nations.
It has taken more than one thousand years to
develop the civilization which marks the better portions of the
present population of the globe; and a thousand years, even of
millennial tutelage, would not avail to
bring up the darker and more degraded sections to a very exalted
height. And among these ruder peoples Satan finds the pliant
materials for a new and last revolt. Jerome and Theodoret identify
Gog and Magog with "the Scythian nations, fierce and
innumerable, who live beyond the Caucasus and the lake Maeotis, and
near the Caspian Sea, and spread out even onward to India." The
Koran does the same, and represents them as barbarians of the North,
who are somehow restrained until the last period of the world, when
they are to swarm forth toward the South in some great predatory
irruption, only to be hurled into Gehenna fire.
It
is doubtful whether we can get beyond this by any ethnic or
geographic inquiries in the present state of human knowledge. It is
also questionable whether this post-millennial Gog and Magog are the
same described by Ezekiel (Ezek 37:1-14). They may be the same, or
the one may be the type of the other; but in either case the
reference is to peoples lying outside of the more civilized world,
among whom the old Devil influence lingers longest, and hence, the
most susceptible to these new instigation. At least Satan succeeds in
rendering them dissatisfied with the holy rule of God's glorified
saints, and induces them to believe that that they can successfully
throw it off and crush it out, as the deluded kings under the
antichrist were persuaded a thousand years before. How he does this
we are not told; but under him they come forth in swarming myriads,
enter the same holy land, and compass about the citadel of the saints
and the beloved city, in the vain hope of wresting the dominion from
its immortal possessors.
(from
The Apocalypse: Exposition of the Book of Revelation)
Rev
20:8-9
Gog
and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the
sand of the sea.
9
They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of
the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of
heaven and devoured them”
A
terrible disaster ensues. A madder thing than Gog and Magog's attempt
was never undertaken upon earth. It is simply a march into
the jaws of death, for no rebellion against the kings who then hold
the reins of government can be tolerated. The insane war is quickly
terminated. One brief sentence tells the fearful story:
"There came down fire out of the
heaven and devoured them." When
Israel was encamped in the wilderness, a guard of Levites was set
about the tabernacle, and the command to them was: "The
stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death" (Num 1:51.) So
a guard of immortal king-priests keep the ways to the throne and
temple of Yahweh in that day, and the presumptuous dupes of Satan's
last deception who dare to approach with hostile intent, are
instantly hurled to a fiery destruction. Not a man of them
escapes.
(from
The Apocalypse: Exposition of the Book of Revelation)
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