The Last Days Series: Volume 10

The Last Days

Volume 12

Joseph A Cortes TeachingFaith Ministries

The Last Days: Volume 12

Table of Contents Page Chapter One: Gog & Magog 1

Chapter Two: The Magog Deception 10

Chapter Three: The Scythians 25

Chapter Four: Sons of Isaac 36

Chapter Five: Still Near 47

Chapter Six: Gog Alliance 57

Chapter Seven: I Will Sixth Thee 70

Chapter Eight: The Rise of Turkey 78

Chapter Nine: Armageddon 88

Chapter Ten: Who Were the Ashchenaz? 97

Chapter Eleven: Gog & Magog/Armageddon 104

Chapter Twelve: Gog & Magog Update 112

Gog & Magog

Ezekiel 38:1-2, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, [2] Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him...” When you read ‘son of man’ here at the beginning of verse two, this is not Jesus who is going to prophecy against Gog and Magog. It is Ezekiel. “And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD;”—this is coming from God, Ezekiel is just the messenger—“Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws...” I was reading something from a popular preacher that writes quite a bit on end-time prophecies. He took this verse, “and I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and was stating that this was Russia that God was speaking about when He gave the message to Ezekiel to prophecy against Gog, the land of Magog. He justified it by the Crimea situation with Russia coming into the area and seizing Crimea again. Crimea is located in the northern area of the Black Sea. And of course, you know the whole situation that is going on there with Russia at this point and time in history. But “and put the hooks into thy jaws”: This particular popular preacher was saying that this was defined by— basically using your imagination—drawing a hook-like imaginary line from north of the Black Sea and curving it over, down and around through the Mediterranean Sea thereby reaching Israel. I said to myself, “How many people will think”—because once again it is fantasy, imaginary Christian science fiction thinking—“Ah ha! Scripture is proven,” because of the geographical location the imaginary hook-like line is drawn and believe I will turn thee back and put the hooks in thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army means that? Well, ‘I will turn thee back’ means this army was there one other time before in the past. So when has Russia been a beast, or even a horn of power, or any other descriptive term God’s Word used for a geographic area of power having control over Israel? We know the Roman Empire did. We know the Muslims have. We know going back all the way to the Assyrian and the Babylonian empires that they did. These are all things I’ve taught on. Those have trampled Jerusalem. Those have been in control in the past over that tiny little nation called Israel. So when you read these verses, unless you are super gullible, you are not going to believe that—but many are, because they paint a pretty convincing imaginary picture causing one to think, “Wow! Just look at that. He put a line on a map and that draws a hook. That must have been what God was referring to in Ezekiel 38:4, I will turn thee back and put the hooks in thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army... that must be referring to Russia... all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling 2 swords.” So they (98% of all the Christian science fiction teachers of last day events) conclude that verses two to four are referring to Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), with a majority of the group using merely verse 2. Verse 5 says, “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”—I will talk about verse five in the future—“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years”—we are in those years now—“thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword...”—The ‘land that is brought back from the sword’ is Israel. It was brought back from the sword in 1948, and Jerusalem was brought back from the sword in 1967—“...and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm...” This other confederacy (and I will get to who they are) shall come like a rushing, devastating storm (literally in the Hebrew), “...thou shalt be like a cloud [or a great army] to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.” Remember I taught on allah and the word used for ‘ascending’ [alah]? The same word is used here in verse nine: “Thou shalt alah and come like a rushing devastating storm.” Is this somehow identifying in God’s Word what this confederacy will consist of? We know what the Psalm 83 confederacy consists of, that it is an Arab confederacy. I pointed it out many times. Their common denominator there also is their worship of allah; a false god, a false religion, made up by a false prophet, Mohammed. “Thou shall alah and come like a storm”—and I will get into how that verse reads out in the future—“and thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought [conceive a malicious purpose to bring about evil]: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages...” This ‘land of unwalled villages’ has to happen after the Psalm 83 War. “I will go to them that are at rest...” Israel thinks it’s at rest because it has defeated its neighboring enemies (Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, parts of Iraq) in the Psalm 83 War. You would think that would be convincing enough to this other confederacy (let’s just call it Gog for now) to leave this little tiny nation alone and those who support it; but that doesn’t happen. And Israel will make the mistake and think they have a certain amount of security; but they are wrong, Islam was not defeated. (‘Unwalled villages’ is identified in scriptures to mean a certain thing. I haven’t covered this yet in Psalm 83 and plan to go back to it in the future and pick up near this point where after the Psalm 83 War we have ‘unwalled villages’.) “And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages, that dwell safely [confidently]”—that this their problem right there—“all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates...”—this doesn’t mean everybody is going to take away the gates or the bars from their windows, or anything like that—“To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the 3 land. [13] Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil...” Hmm, some of the defeated areas that we’ve seen in Psalm 83 in that list of confederacies are even going to wonder, What are you doing? “...hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog [whomever Gog is], Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day [which hasn’t happened yet] when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts,”—this is why many people think it is Russia, because what is more northern than Russia, that was once considered a superpower—“And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: And thou shalt come up [alah] against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?” Regarding “Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?”, our question here should be: If 'north parts' means Russia as the Christian science fiction theorists want us to believe, what prophets have ever prophesied against Russia? Think about it. Unless you have a really good grip on what the history of Scripture has laid out, you can read right through these verses and forget to ask, What prophets “prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them”? Who did the prophets prophesy against concerning what Ezekiel is being told to say by the Lord God by Himself? To understand that and not be sucked in by these con-artists that teach on the last days, you have to understand and know biblical history; and not just what we read here in the Bible, even though it is enough to take it by faith, but what you can find outside the Bible. How many times have I used secular history and added it into the areas that it needed to be added to to point out and prove that in secular history you can find some of the answers that are not so easily found in Scripture? Because on those occasions when even though the prophets might have pointed out certain things, you are still wondering “Okay, when did that happen, and why did that happen, and who was involved, and how does that concern anything that is going to happen in the future with the areas that are in those locations now?” Now I know I am talking in general terms here without giving too much information. This message is not about giving you a lot of information. It is about introducing you to the subject of, Why does this chapter always have these Christian science fiction teachers only considering Russia as the main player whom God has prophesied against here in Ezekiel 38? What makes them think that way? I already said it, their lack of understanding of what really went down in secular history that ties in with biblical history - once you put the two together and see it laid out for yourself, which I plan to do. I am not just going to leave you high and dry. I am going to lay all this stuff out for you and you can decide for yourself. 4

“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them? And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.” Oh! It is going to happen when God says enough is enough. Verse 19, “For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.” That is a mouth full. That is a lot of destruction that is coming down on Gog by the hand of God. Now, can we tie this in with scriptures and other books with the Bible to have a better idea of when this is going to take place? Absolutely. Ezekiel 39:1, “Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly [confidently] in the isles:”—what isles— “and they shall know that I am the LORD. So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord GOD; this is the day whereof I have spoken.” And it goes on, which we will get to in this teaching on the Gog/Magog War. All the weapons will be burned. It will take up to seven years to burn all the destruction that came down on this confederacy of Gog, Magog, Persia and Libya, Ethiopia, Gomer, and Togarmah. And verse 11 says, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.” 5

You can read the rest of the chapter yourself. Then in verse 21, “And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward. And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity:”—not the house of Judah, but the House of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity. They were taken away by the Assyrian Empire. Remember that teaching? “...because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword. According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.” Verse 25, “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel,”—the whole house of Israel, no one is excluded—“and will be jealous for my holy name; After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid. When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.” That is the whole house of Israel. When this is all said and done, folks, there is not going to be any doubt worldwide who the House of Israel, the whole House of Israel truly are. Those of you that have heard me teach in the past or heard someone else teach it, already have an idea who those people are, they are the Hidden Ones. There were two captivities: first the Assyrian Empire for the northern tribes; and the Babylonian Empire for the House of Judah. But the House of Judah already came back; they came back after seventy years in their captivity. Now they went into the wilderness again, and after so many days, which translates into years, as I taught, they reestablished themselves as the sovereign nation of Israel in 1948. But for most, the House of Israel was still lost, the northern tribes. Now, I have identified them with the United States, Great Britain, and parts of Western Europe. The United States, being the dominant brother, will take the lead role in the Psalm 83 War. I also believe they will take the lead role and be involved in this Gog/Magog War. But with the Gog/Magog War, God will be more involved with hands-on things that He does, not some great army like the United States of America. I want to make sure you understand that. And that is where I have to tie it in with the book of Revelation when we get to these scriptures. There is a lot to cover. It can’t be written in a nice 150-250 page book and laid out as some Christian science fiction theory. It is going to take time. I decided to shelve Psalm 83 for now, but I am going to come back to it. I will allow some things to develop first. You know enough and you know what to keep your eye on. A confederacy will develop. Whether they are able to form a caliphate like some believe they will be able to do... only God knows. I am not too sure they will get along with each other to do it, but I do believe enough terrorist groups will have enough of an army if they can combine their efforts to one day take over some of these nations that they are battling against right now—resulting in this cocky 6 confidence that they will overtake Israel to get Jerusalem back, and that will start the Psalm 83 War. That is a different war. It comes first. But I have to bring up this Gog/Magog War now because some eschatology teachers are trying to combine this together into one big great war. No. It is not going to happen that way. I will identify all these different characters in Ezekiel 38, the beginning part of it, and historically put them in the place where they should be—not what some people think they should be because they are looking at the map and who has power over what in these last days and what army is stronger than another. I don’t think people understand that Islam is an army. Yes, there are Sunni and Shiites, Kurds battling in Iraq right now, and other types of Islam associations also, but it is all combined in the last beast, the 8th Beast, all with the same goal to destroy the whole House of Israel. Period. They know if they can do that, they will take over the world. Not only are they going to try to take over that part of the world that they are fighting so hard in on a daily basis right now in the Middle East through force, but in other parts of the world they are trying to do it with influence. Look at Europe. Look at Russia. Nobody wants to talk about their problem. See, everybody looks at Russia right now and looks at Putin as an evil dictator himself (and I am not saying he is not...he is trying to control pipelines and oil flow in and out of his country), but Russia has a real large problem, greater than what the United States has experienced by far, the Islam influence pushing north. Why do you think Russia gave up a lot of the ‘stans’ (I.e. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan)? They knew the problem they had on their hands with Islam - but it is not stopping with the ‘stans’, it is moving forward and it is also moving east into China. It has pretty much taken over Indonesia and the vast area that covers. Islam is on the march folks and it is important to understand. It is amazing how even the people that listen to me, they understand the 8th Beast is the final beast that God deals with, but then get sidetracked. Ask yourself, are you now incorporating Russia into the 8th Beast too? Or is that a 9th beast, even though we don’t have a 9th beast in Scripture? Get your head out of these Christian science fiction sources. The history is there to be seen, but it has to be uncovered because it is really hidden. I plan to uncover it. I plan to expose who this Gog, land of Magog, chief prince of Meshach and Tubal and the rest of the players in verses five and six are, that will come against Israel and the whole House of Israel as one of the latter events that concludes this world’s history before a new age, the age of eternity that starts without all of this evil, without Satan, without sin, an age that Jesus rules and reigns. This has been just a general introduction. I know some want me to move as fast as I can, but history takes time to lay down correctly. You can’t take many shortcuts or else you would be developing a new Christian science fiction theory. I am not in the business of doing that. This will be a fascinating part of the series, but also an important part of the series, as all the sections of the series in the Last Days Series have been, and, it will line up with God’s Word. I will finally get into some areas in the book of Revelation that you thought I would never get to. I am going to get there. And these two chapters will force me to combine it all together because you can’t leave it out and have a complete picture of what is really going to go down. God’s hand is on it. It will come to pass. The bottom line is by the time I am done with it you can see where we are in the prophetic calendar. The end is near, but certain things still need to take place. 7

“So are you saying Jesus is not coming back tomorrow?” No, He is not. “Are you saying He is not coming back on the Feast of the Trumpets this coming September?” No, He is not. There are things that need to happen, folks, that just have not happened yet, and I will get to them. There will be a lot to cover in two little chapters of Ezekiel, that will also include other areas of God’s Word, that will line all this up in a timeline that will be visible and understandable just as I have done before in the past.

To be continued...

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The Last Days Study Guide Gog & Magog

1. What terminology does God use regarding His people that signals a greater inclusiveness?

2. What does ‘I will turn thee back’ imply?

3. What Hebrew word means ascend?

4. Why do Christian Science Fiction teachers think Ezekiel 38 is pinpointing Russia?

5. How did the questions put forth against the Russia theory affect your understanding?

The Magog Deception

Open your bible to Ezekiel 38. Verse 1, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince [or the prince of the chief] of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, [...] I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal...” God is against them. “Ezekiel tells us that Gog, [referring to Magog], the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generation that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly.”

The above is part of a speech given at a dinner with California legislators back in 1971 by a then future U.S. President, Ronald Regan. People can come up with and propagate all kinds of theories of who is who and what is what when they do not study God’s Word along with the history that must go along with it. I have kind of pointed that out in this series for years now. Even a former U.S. President was convinced that Russia was Gog of Magog, that they are the ones to the north. It goes on to say in verse 4, “And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws...” I referenced a silly theory of one very popular prophecy teacher’s explanation for what ‘put hooks into thy jaws’ means. He drew an imaginary line on a map from the areas that Russia took control of, Crimea and the northern Black Sea area, and made the invisible line hook around Turkey and through the Mediterranean Sea to Israel’s location. It was to represent “And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords...” That was his conclusion; Russia’s latest move is a sign concerning the prophecy we find here in Ezekiel 38:4. If only it was that easy. It is stupid and silly. I can’t really dignify it with anything else. It’s not worth the time of day in bringing it up, but there are some that will tune in somewhere along this series and think, “Well, I heard this...by this individual. It did make sense when I drew that imaginary line. It is kind of hooking around back to Israel.” If that is what you are going to based your understanding on, then you are really lost. It is the blind leading the blind and they all fall in a ditch together. Unless you listen to the truth, find it somewhere, you are going to stay in that ditch. I am not talking about your salvation, I am taking about your understanding of what we are to be aware of in these last days. 11

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” Now it is not just President Ronald Regan. It is like I said, ninety-nine percent of all Christians’ geographical understanding of Gog the land of Magog is that it is present day Russia. The Native Americans of North America are called Indians, but what do these people have to do with the country of India? Absolutely nothing. Hundreds of years ago, Christopher Columbus was looking for a water passage to the country of India as a means of obtaining gold and valuable spices. When he arrived in the islands of the Caribbean, Columbus, seeing dark skinned people [like you’d see in India], called them Indians and declared his passage a success. [He thought he reached his destination and he was in India.] However, the people we call Indians were not related to the people of India [not even close] and the Caribbean Islands are a very long way from India.

There has been a similar misconception in many bible prophecy books over the last 100 years. [Actually, it goes back further than one hundred years. In my opinion, it goes back two thousand years.] As previously discussed, the belief that Russia is the country from the North who is to attack Israel during the end times is a mistake.

Now to preach and teach that goes against everything that’s being preached today. What else is new? We’ve pretty much done that since the beginning of the series. It goes against the grain. It goes against what is being taught in bible colleges, churches, home churches, bible study classes, you name it. It has been taught that present day Russia is Gog of Magog. Do I think that is a mistake to have that kind of an understanding, if that is what you have been taught? Yes. I will get to explaining why. Although evidence that contradicts this conclusion has become common knowledge within the academic arena, this misconception is still prevalent in end times Bible prophecy books. This misconception short circuits the proper understanding of end times Bible prophecy. Just as we know the “Indians” are not citizens of India, we will see that Russia is not the country spoken of in Ezekiel 38-39.

Championed by the authors of many Bible prophecy books, the erroneous interpretation of Ezekiel 38-39 has remained the current and popular belief among many evangelical Christians who associate the Russians with Gog and Magog. This interpretation [and there is plenty wrong with this too, but...] says that sometime before the great Battle of Armageddon, there will be a Russian invasion and war with Israel. This end times Russian invasion theory is based on faulty eighteenth and nineteenth century references used to determine the identities of the ancient nation of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) which are discussed in Ezekiel 38:2-6. It has been mistakenly 12

believed that the ancient nation of “Magog” in western Asia Minor was the ancient “tribal name” of the “Scythians,” a group of Iranian speaking nomadic tribes from Central Asia north of Iran that traveled across the Russian steppes, and came to live in the territory north of the Black Sea.

Which would put it up in the Ukraine area. Just north of the Black Sea is the area that use to belong to Russia, today called Ukraine. You’ve seen in the news that Russia wants that back. There is no doubt about it. They want it back in their territory. That area is a key component that maintains their communication to the West and their oil flow (amongst other commodities) that are exported from Russia, and if that was not available they would face certain economic disasters. Then, in turn, and again in error, it has been believed that the ancient Scythians were the progenitors of the modern Russians.

That is one of the biggest problems. I am not going to get that deep into it but with these eschatologists trying to figure out the people who occupied this area in the past, one of the problems they face (and that they argue all the time even in today’s present understanding) is who the ancient Scythians really were -- were they part of what we would consider modern day Russians today. Within academia today, there are no professional archeologists or historians who associate Magog with the Scythians...

I am telling you right now, neither do I. I am not a professional archeologist, or historian. I just love history. I don’t label myself with any of those titles. I don’t associate Magog with the Scythians. If you do that and you are a Bible teacher, you make one of the grandest errors in an eschatological understanding of who Gog of the land of Magog is, who they were, and who they are today. The Scythians had nothing to do with it. I’ll tell you in advance (and probably tell you more in the next message), the Lost Tribes of Israel were part of the Scythians that migrated through the Caucasus Mountains between 600- 700 BC. They migrated from the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and through the Caucasus Mountains. Now some went north and eastward from the east side of the Caspian Sea also, but most of them went through the Armenian area passageway, which is now Armenia, Georgia and so forth. They are not Russians. ...or the Scythians with the Russians. National Geographic explains that a group of Scandinavian Viking traders called the Rus began the Russian state around 800 AD. It says, “The Slavs and Finns there (near today’s St. Petersburg) called them Rus, after the Finnic term for Swedes, Ruotsi... These Rus eventually founded the first Russian state centered in Kiev in today’s Ukraine, and gave their name to Russia, a cultural inconvenience the Soviet historians were compelled to dispute for decades.” The name “Rus” or “Rhus” appears in the writings of Bishop Troyes in 839 AD, and according to the 12th century document known as the Primary Chronicle the land around Kiev was named “Rus” and the inhabitants called “Russes” in 852 AD. National Geographic goes on to tell how Novgorod 13

(east of St. Petersburg), was an early Russian Capital founded by the Rus, and how in the city of Kiev, the Rus Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988. Also, as explained, the renowned Arab Chronicler Ibn Fadlan tells how in 921 AD he met with a group of blond haired people of Swedish origin called the Rus. He told how he met them on the upper Volga River in western Russia as they came up the river in their ships to trade with the Bulgars. Even the author’s daughter’s high school history textbook details how Russian origins are Scandinavian. Simply put, the Scythians were gone for at least 500 years before the Russians came to be a people.

I am telling you right now, it was a lot further back than 500 years. It was at least somewhere between 800-900 years. There is neither a genetic nor a cultural connection between the Scythians and the Russians.

I will go into it a little bit further next time, but the Lost Tribes of Israel became a part of the Scythians. They were taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire and settled in the areas of eastern Syria, northern Iraq, and northern Iran. And then when the Assyrian Empire was defeated, they migrated north through the Caucasus Mountains and then west. If they did not go up through the Caucasus Mountains, they went up through today’s Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan areas north of the Caspian Sea and then they also migrated west. Now some believe part of the tribes, maybe Naphtali or part of it, migrated toward India, down toward that area. I am not going to get into all that topic because I do not feel it is pertinent to know all that stuff for this study. That is for another study. Where did the idea begin that Magog begat the Scythians?

Now some of this might be all Greek to you because you’ve never heard any of this history. You don’t even know what a Scythian is; or if you did, you thought it was something else—which it is not—but you didn’t know very much about the Scythians. There are other groups in those areas besides the Scythians also, but the Scythians were predominantly the major group. This is important to know. Just as we needed to debunk all the Christian science fiction non-sense in the beginning of The Last Days series, the same thing needs to happen with the Gog-Magog War and the players in it. Where did the idea begin that Magog begat the Scythians? It began with one very questionable sentence written by the First Century AD Jewish historian, Josephus in his book The Antiquity of the Jews.

We find that in Book 1, Chapter 6, line 123 (in case you have a copy of it) of The Antiquity of the Jews in The Works of Josephus translated by Whitson. The sentence says the Greeks called the “Magogites” the “Scythians” despite the fact that the Greeks did not call the Magogites the Scythians. 14

“Well Josephus was an honorable, learned Jewish historian. How could he make such a mistake?” Are you sure about that? Not only is this statement in conflict with the far more detailed writings of other ancient historians (Greek and non Greek) and wit ancient Assyrian texts that provide firsthand information about both the people of Magog and Scythians, but this sentence [just a sentence by the way] by Josephus, which identifies Magog with the Scythians, is found in a passage where Josephus makes other errors in the identification of other ancient nations of Asia Minor.

Footnote: Josephus’ books provide first-hand information about the Jews of the First Century AD but when it comes to earlier periods, such as the Seventh and Eighth Century BC, Josephus usually himself relies on earlier ancient historians. Scholars today, on a case by case basis urge caution in regard to Josephus’ historical reliability. Those who blindly accept Josephus’ apparent association of Magog with the Scythians tend to elevate Josephus’ words to the level of Scripture. They do not seem to be aware that Josephus’ history of the Jews, The Antiquity of the Jews is in direct conflict with Bible scriptures in a number of instances.

Although Josephus uses the ancient Greek historian Herodotus’ book The History as a reference on a number of occasions, in this passage about Magog and the Scythians, Josephus is not only in conflict with Herodotus, but he even conflicts with other statements he made about who he says the Greeks identified as the Scythians. In one line Josephus says the Greeks identified the Scythians with Magog, but then a few lines later Josephus using the Hebrew word for the Scythians, “Ashchenaz,” says the Greeks identified “Ashchenaz” with Rhegium, which was a port city of Southern Italy (Acts 28:13) known for its rock of Scylla. The names “Scythians” and “Ashchenaz” are just English and Hebrew transliterations (ie. they spell a word in the alphabet of another language) of the Greek name, Skythes for the same nomadic people. To those familiar with Herodotus’ book The History, it is obvious that the Greeks didn’t make either of the identifications Josephus attributes to them.

One can only speculate how and why these obviously wrong statements are in Josephus’ book. Were these inaccurate statements the products of Josephus’ imagination, or where they the result of alterations to the few copies of Josephus’ work that existed in the first century? Maybe Josephus was using the word “Magog” as a generic term for any fierce people coming down from the north. Whatever the reason, the statements don’t reflect that the ancient Asia Minor nation, referred to as “Ashkenaz” or “Ashchenaz” in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, is in fact the same nation or people the Greeks called the “Scythians”. 15

You can find them in the Old Testament. All we need to do is go to Genesis 10:3, Noah’s family record. “And the sons of Gomer [also found in Ezekiel]; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.” It is not like they are not in Scripture; they are there, but they have been misidentified. It is a shame because that is what started a lot of eschatologist down the wrong road. Why is it important to understand who the Scythians were and where they came from? Well, Paul must have thought something of it. We find in Colossians 3:11 it reads, “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian [easily identified if you know what Paul is writing about], Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” Of course here Paul is writing concerning other issues when writing the Colossian letter, but he brings up the Scythian, ““Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”. Hmm, we have a reference to Ashkenaz in the Old Testament and we have a reference that Paul uses, that the Greeks even used, that separates who this “Scythians” were. Paul was not the Apostle to the Russians or any of that area (whatever it was called back then). No. Who was Paul an Apostle to? Of course it was the common word (which I’ve already referred to in past teaching), the Gentiles. He was an Apostle to the Lost Tribes of Israel. As for identifying Magog with the Scythians, who the Hebrew knew as Ashkenaz, it is important to note that the Table of Nations found in Genesis 10:2-3 lists Magog and the Ashkenaz as quite separate entities. Interestingly, the Assyrian word for the Scythians, Ishkuza or Ashguza, is similar to the Hebrew word for the Scythians – Ashkenaz. Those who have relied on the erroneous statements found in Josephus about Magog and the Scythians must recognize the simple fact that the Scythians and the Ashkenaz are not separate nations. In truth, they are one and the same.

Further, the erroneous statements by Josephus about the Greeks identifying the Magogites with the Scythians, and the Greeks identifying Ashchenaz with Rhegiun are preceded by yet another erroneous and anachronous statement about the relationship between two other ancient nations of Asia Minor. In this statement Josephus writes that the Greeks associated the Gomerites (Ezekiel 38:5) with the Galatians, when in fact the Gomerites (Cimmerians) and the Galatians had absolutely nothing to do with each other. The Greeks of Josephus’ time simply did not call Gomer the Galatians. The Gomerites (Cimmerians) were invaders from an area around the northeast shore of the Black Sea. They displaced the ancient nation of Meshech in central Asia Minor and occupied this area from around 800 BC – 630 BC before pulling back. The Galatians (Gauls and not the Gauls of Roman France) were migrants from Central Europe, who came to Central Asia Minor as a result of a population explosion during the third century BC. Eventually they won over the local tribes and gained status as the Roman province of Galatia in 25 BC. While the Gomerites and the Galatians both occupied Central Asia Minor, they did so at different times and bear no relationship with each other. Despite what Josephus 16 wrote, Gomer did not found the Galatians, and Magog did not found the Scythians.

One cannot help wondering how and why Josephus made three such totally erroneous statements in a single passage, if in fact he did. Ecclesiastical acceptance of the erroneous connection between Magog and the Scythians traces back to Saint Jerome of the late forth century AD. [I told you it was a 2000 year problem.] It is interesting to note that several other critical statements found in Josephus’ book The Antiquity of the Jews which was written by Josephus in Greek, and later copied in Greek by Christian copyists, are not found in an Arabic copy of his book. This indicates that the few Greek copies of his book, which were available early on and were in turn copied, were altered in some places to suit prevailing Christian beliefs.

Finally, this deception about the Russian invasion of Israel was first popularized in the 19th century. [The 1800’s when all the other Christian Science Fiction theories about the last days were put together.] A book written by a pastor at the time seems to contain a purposeful misquote of a statement about a city in Magog made by the highly regarded first century AD Roman historian Pliny. In his multi-volume work called The Natural History, Pliny identifies the ancient Lydian city of Hierapolis as being part of Magog. Built atop the cliffs, the city of Hierapolis controlled the water supply of the Lydian city of Laodicea six miles to the south. The city of Hierapolis was built by the Lydians and always under Lydian control until the Lydian Kingdom became part of the Persian Empire in 546 BC and then part of the Greek and Roman Empires that followed. Like Pliny, today’s archeologists also identify Magog with the ancient nation of Lydia, which was in western Asia Minor. Indeed, written records from the Assyrian royal court show that the Assyrians used the name Magog as an eponym for the nation of Lydia. In his book Pliny writes, “Bambyx the other name of which is Hierapolis, but by the Syrians called Magog.” In other words, Pliny identifies the famed Lydian city of Hierapolis as being part of Magog. In this we see that Magog is another name for the ancient nation of Lydia. However, in the book The Destiny of Nations by nineteenth century Pastor John Cummings, one of those credited with being the author and popularizer of the Bible interpretation that calls for Russia invading Israel, we read, “Pliny says ‘Hierapolis taken by the Scythians was afterward called Magog.” We can see Pliny’s statement has been misquoted or misunderstood in a way that makes it seem that Magog was related to the Scythians rather than the Lydians. Unfortunately, this same misquote of Pliny has been carried forward in time and appears in Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth.

It is this error which incorrectly relates Magog to the Scythians, who were erroneously believed to be progenitors of Russia that led President Ronald Regan and others to refer to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and “the 17

focus of evil in the modern world.” At a dinner with California legislators in 1971 (before he became president), prophecy student Ronald Regan concisely summed up his view of Russia’s end time role.

I told you what he said at the beginning of this message. The identification of Magog with Lydia and not Scythia is consistent with the ancient texts of the Assyrians, who at various times were either the allies or the foes of the Scythians yet had peaceful dealing with the Lydians. The identification of Magog as Lydia, and not Scythian is also consistent with the writings of the ancient historian Herodotus (ca 490-424 BC), a Greek who was born in, lived in, and traveled throughout all of ancient Asia Minor. Herodotus’ famed book, The History, which gives a detailed history of all the ancient nations of Asia Minor, was written about 100 years after Ezekiel’s writings. Herodotus, who is considered the Father of History, wrote detailed information about the three different Scythian tribes and the ten different tribes that neighbored them, including their ever changing and opportunistic alliances. Herodotus also wrote in detail about the Lydian Royal Dynasty. It is clear that Magog (Lydia) and the Scythians were not related. He says that Magog (Lydia), as led by the historical figure Gog (Gyges to the Greek, Gugu to the Assyrians) and the Scythians, were in fact enemies! In Gyges of Lydia we have the leader the Assyrians called “Gugu, King of Ludu,” and “Gugu of Magugu,” the Bible’s Gog of Magog.

In Foes From the Northern Frontier Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, a professor of history at Miami University in Ohio writes that Herodotus’ account of the Scythians is our chief literary source about the Scythians. He says that some Bible scholars “seem to be unaware of the numerous archeological confirmations of Herodotus’ reports in general, and of his Scythian account in particular.” In his book, which contains a great deal of information on the Scythians, Yamauchi makes it clear that modern Russia’s origins are not Scythian, and like other historians he explains that modern Russia’s origins are Scandinavian (the Rus). Also, Yamauchi emphatically explains that none of the ancient nations referred to in Ezekiel 38-39 can possibly be related to modern Russia. Further, Yamauchi says:

“Even if one were to transliterate the Hebrew rosh as a proper name (as does the NAS) rather than translate it as ‘chief’ (as does the KJV, NIV, and Hebrew Tanakh), it can have nothing to do with modern ‘Russia.’ This would be a gross anachronism for the modern name is based upon the name Rus, which was brought into the region of Kiev, north of the Black Sea, by the Vikings only in the Middle Ages.”

The Bible interpretation calling for a Russian invasion of Israel was framed at a time when little was known about Magog, the Scythians, or 18

Russian origins. Many who have held to this interpretation have also tried to understand who the other countries listed in Ezekiel 38-39 were (Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah). Some have associated Magog and/or Rosh with Russia, some also erroneously associate Meshech with the Russian city of Moscow, and Tubal with the Siberian city of Tobolsk. Promoted by the 1909 and the 1917 editions of the Scofield Reference Bible, these erroneous associations are representative of a type of arm chair “name game” archeology that was quite popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Based on the inappropriate transliteration of the Hebrew word rosh, which most translations of the Old Testament (KJV, NIV, Hebrew Tanakh) properly translate as the word “chief”, the NAS translation mistakenly refers to a country called Rosh. Historian Paul Boyer notes that “Scores, and probably hundreds of post war prophecy writers made the Rosh=Russia connection, usually citing Gesenius, Bishop Lowth, Scofield, or all three.” For those who insist on the erroneous transliteration of the Hebrew word for “chief” that yields a nation called Rosh, ancient Asia Minor had several different localities that could answer to this name and fulfill the obvious Asia Minor context of Ezekiel 38:2, 3 and 6 without invoking Russia. It should also be noted again that unlike Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Togarmah and Gomer of Ezekiel 38-39, which are all mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10:2-3, a nation called Rosh is notably absent.

For decades archeologists and historians have known that neither Magog, nor the Scythians, nor any of the ancient nation referred to in Ezekiel 38- 39, could possibly have had anything to do with the origins of the modern Russians. For example, Daniel I. Block, a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois in The Book of Ezekiel says,

“The popular identification of Tubal with Tubolsk in Russia (Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth 1970, p.53) is ludicrous...The popular identification of Meshech with Moscow (of Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth p.53) is absurd.”

Of course he is using Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth—that Mr. Lindsey sold millions upon millions of copies of—to show the mistake. Lindsey is still out there teaching erroneous doctrines based on theory, not any sort of history. In fact, there is no history involved. If you have never read his books and all their editions (I have the very first edition), you will find in those other editions that he had to make some corrections, changing things along the way, because as time changes and events change, he changes. But the one thing Lindsey is sure of and kept the same is that Gog, the land of Magog, or Rosh, was Russia. They aren’t. 19

This map shows the Assyrian Empire relocated the ten northern tribes. You can see the House of Israel (Ephraim being the leader) toward the bottom right and the red arrows with one arrow leading to Media (the Medes), the Iranian area of today, and another pointing to Assyria (northern Iraq, parts of northern Iran); and of course the arrows around the Black Sea. Remember God disowned the Lost Tribes, the ten tribes to the north. They were going to be known as not His people. So they were not known by their tribal names any longer or any Israelite name, but they had similar names so that we can connect the dots. If you do a study on the Lost Tribes and how they migrated after the Assyrian Empire crumbled, where you see “Scythia” (which is the lower Ukraine area today and lower Russia or what today is all the ‘stans’), they migrated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and to the right of the Caspian Sea north. They spent a short time there and then they started migrating west (where we see all those western arrows) and they became known as the Celts. Now before their captivity there were also other migrations (depicted by the green arrows). Everything pretty much ended up in the area of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Ireland), Iceland, western Europe and up into the Scandinavian areas. They migrated north and west. They were not known by their tribal names such as Ephraim or Manasseh or Naphtali or Ruben or any of those names. Judah was taken into captivity by the Babylonian Empire about 100 years later. They never lost their name. They were still considered the House of Judah when they were released from their captivity. The House of Israel (today the ten Lost Tribes) were no longer called Israelites. Their names were changed, but there are some identification markers so that we can connect the dots. I just wanted to show you what the argument is (which isn’t really much of an argument); that basically all these bible prophecy book writers don’t really get into the Scythians in detail because they know if they bring out the history it will prove their theory wrong. What we will find out is most of the Gog, Magog, and other names we find in Ezekiel 38 (I.e. Gomer, Togarmah) are located between the Caspian Sea and the southern areas of the Black 20

Sea—which, a large area of that would be Turkey. And of course we find in Ezekiel 38 that other nations will join in such as Persia (Iran, and I believe, Afghanistan, all the way to Pakistan, the ‘stans’ or southern Russia); Ethiopia (Cush), some areas of Iraq, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the south didn’t join in on that also; Put (Libya), which also includes Tunisia, Algeria will probably also be included in that because that is all the areas of northern Africa; Gomer and all his bands, the house of Togarmah in the north quarters, and many people with thee. As I mentioned last time, what Ezekiel was prophesying against is the last beast that we have in prophetic scriptures that God deals with—which was the 7th, that started to officially die in the west when they tried to conquer through France, but they were pushed back by Charles “The Hammer” Martel in 732 AD. If they had gotten to England, it would have been all over and this whole world would have been Islamic. But it was pushed back and part of the beast died, that 7th Beast, and then the Ottoman Empire (which I haven’t gotten much into yet) collapsed in the earlier part of the last century. It was officially no longer the 7th Beast. Now it came back to life because its wound would be healed. I mentioned the ways it did become healed earlier in the series [Last Days Series, Vol. 4]. It is now known as the 8th Beast and still Islamic because it was healed from its deadly wound. It is coming back to life and it is no surprise they are trying to revive the caliphate, areas where the Ottoman Empire once controlled before the 7th Beast officially died. Most of the areas like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Vienna, and areas like that from a little before 800- 900 AD pushed the beast back. Then we get to the 15th and 16th centuries in southeastern Europe and it was pushed back to where it only remained in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and areas like that.

They want back this area we see depicted on the map. Once something is claimed for Islam, it is always Islam; once they claim it for allah, it is always allah’s land. Even if they lose it, it is still allah’s land and rightfully theirs in their mindset. I have news for them, they have another thing coming. God (the real God, not the false one created through Mohammed) doesn’t see it the same way they do. Now that is what they want to accomplish, the first stages. Do you think Iraq 21 and Syria, if ISIS is it, is all they want to accomplish? No, they want a larger state than that. They want the whole caliphate nation to include the areas in black on the map and then beyond. They want the world bowing down to allah. Now any caliphate that started in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan or any of those areas is going to be involved in an Arab confederacy (listed in Psalm 83). They will be destroyed, but that doesn’t mean Islam is dead, that doesn’t mean the 8th Beast is done with. In fact, the Psalm 83 Arab confederacy will be the weaker section (if you want to call it that) of the Beast. The stronger areas, the areas that have more firepower and capabilities to destroy Israel (that little land about the size of New Jersey, in the USA), will come against her with a greater army than any Arab confederacy. The Ezekiel 38-39 War will cover a larger area than the Arab confederacy in Psalm 83, with stronger nations that have more military power and more finances to fight a war. In the future I will outline on a map who the players are, the nations listed in Ezekiel 38:1-5. It is almost like a second confederacy. When the first confederacy of Arab nations doesn’t work, the second confederacy will act. Israel will think it is at peace with all its brethren because it will pretty much control the area around Israel to give it some stability without having to worry about some bomb being fired over into their neighborhoods, some rockets streaming across and hitting innocent peoples’ homes, schools, buses, or terrorists willing to give up their lives for the sake of allah. Israel will have some peace because Scripture does state it has unwalled villages; meaning it will have some security, and in a sense it will be dropping its guard to some degree. But some of them will turn, and I think it will be shortly after the Psalm 83 War. I don’t think it will be decades and decades, but something will turn and God will draw the areas that are listed in Ezekiel 38, put a hook in their mouth and draw them in, and God will deal with that one. All this nonsense about Russia being Gog of the land of Magog is without any historical data to prove it. There really isn’t any. It is just a theory that was developed and said so many times, and written about so many times, that it looks like it is truly a part of history, but it never was a part of history. It can’t be proven that what Ezekiel is saying is referring to Russia as the major part of the army. I mean if you think about it why is today’s Russia, the second strongest military power in the world, not considered a beast? Think about it. “Well they are going to join up with the Beast.” Let me tell you, there is not a nation in this world that is not going to have some of their nasty political fingers involved in what is going on. We are talking about a military invasion. I am sorry, Russia is not leading it. If you think Russia is going to lead it, then prove it; but don’t use someone’s theory and doctrine as your proof. Go to the historians. We have seen the errors in Josephus. Now some people believe that because his work was copied and recopied in different languages, that that one sentence could have been a scribal error - because that is where some of the confusion comes in for the people that study this and say the Scythians were Russians, when honestly they are not. Next time I will tell you who the Scythians were so you can understand they were not the Russians. I’m telling you some were the ten tribes. They became ‘not God’s people’ because of their idolatry and their sins, but they were not to be ‘not God’s people’ forever because there is plenty of scripture that says once He disciplined His people including the northern tribes, the ten tribes, they will become known as His people once again. Those Scythians migrated west. They had several different name changes; the most popular is the Celts. Most of them finally wound up in the Western parts of the Europe and the British Isles, and then migrated from there to the west even further, to Canada, the USA and so forth. 22

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide The Magog Deception

1. Give the proper translation for ‘rosh’.

2. What nationality are the Rhus?

3. Who migrated westward and displaced the nation of Meshech?

4. Who was the father of Ashkenaz?

5. Name the historian who wrote his history 100 years after Ezekiel’s writings?

6. How long had the Scythians been gone when the Russians became a people?

7. Magog is another name for what ancient nation?

8. Name the two individuals who are the source of error in identifying the Magogites?

9. The House of Israel became known as not God’s people. What was the outcome of that event?

10. Name the bible prophecy author whose flawed eschatology inspired Ronald Regan’s 1971 speech?

11. Give the Greek and Assyrian rendition of the name Gog.

12. When did the 7th Beast officially end?

13. What is the relationship between the Ashkenaz and the Scythians?

14. Name the reference bible that promotes 18th and 19th century name game archeology?

15. What is the relationship between the Lost Ten Tribes and the Scythians?

The Scythians

Open your Bible to Ezekiel 38. Verses 1-3,“And the word of the LORD came unto me [Ezekiel], saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal:” We still have to identify who Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal is, but I want to give you the highlights as a review of what we’ve covered. I started the last message with President Regan’s speech (prior to his presidency) in 1971 where he said, “Ezekiel tells us that Gog, [referring to Magog], the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generation that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly.”

He might have been President of the United States, but he sure got this wrong. It has been mistakenly believed that the ancient nation of “Magog” in western Asia Minor was the ancient “tribal name” of the “Scythians,” a group of Iranian speaking nomadic tribes from Central Asia north of Iran that traveled across the Russian steppes [that is not true either], and came to live in the territory north of the Black Sea.

That is important to remember and is the mistake eschatologists make - and not just eschatologists, but others too that have dabbled in this particular chapter without doing their homework; that the ancient nation of Magog in Asia Minor was the ancient tribal name of the Scythians. Then, in turn, and again in error, it has been believed that the ancient Scythians were the progenitors of the modern Russians. Within academia today, there are no professional archeologists or historians who associate Magog with the Scythians, or the Scythians with the Russians. [...] a group of Scandinavian Viking traders called the Rus began the Russian state around 800 AD. These Rus eventually founded the first Russian state centered in Kiev in today’s Ukraine, and gave their name to Russia. There is neither a genetic nor a cultural connection between the Scythians and the Russians. 26

Where did the idea begin that Magog begat the Scythians? It began with one very questionable sentence written by the First Century AD Jewish historian, Josephus in his book The Antiquity of the Jews.

The sentence says the Greeks called the “Magogites” the “Scythians” despite the fact that the Greeks did not call the Magogites the Scythians.

In one line Josephus says the Greeks identified the Scythians with Magog, but then a few lines later Josephus using the Hebrew word for the Scythians, “Ashchenaz,” says the Greeks identified “Ashchenaz” with Rhegium, which was a port city of Southern Italy. The names “Scythians” and “Ashchenaz” are just English and Hebrew transliterations of the Greek name, Skythes for the same nomadic people.

We can find the Ashkenaz references in Genesis 10 and Jeremiah 51. Those who have relied on the erroneous statements found in Josephus about Magog and the Scythians must recognize the simple fact that the Scythians and the Ashkenaz are not separate nations. In truth, they are one and the same.

Finally, this deception about the Russian invasion of Israel was first popularized in the 19th century. [The 1800’s] A book written by a pastor at the time seems to contain a purposeful misquote of a statement about a city in Magog made by the highly regarded first century AD Roman historian Pliny. In his multi-volume work called The Natural History, Pliny identifies the ancient Lydian city of Hierapolis as being part of Magog.

In the book The Destiny of Nations by another nineteenth century pastor, one of those credited with being the author and popularizer of the Bible interpretation [that most believe as truth] that calls for Russia invading Israel, we read, “Pliny says ‘Hierapolis taken by the Scythians was afterward called Magog.” We can see Pliny’s statement has been misquoted or misunderstood in a way that makes it seem that Magog was related to the Scythians rather than the Lydians. Unfortunately, this same misquote of 27

Pliny has been carried forward in time and appears in Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth.

I already told you who the Scythians were, but I am going to back that up, give you some general information. The Lost Tribes of Israel were part of the Scythians. So if they are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and if they are Magog in the time that Ezekiel was told to write this down for a future time (from that point on up to today), then Israel is going to fight the House of Judah in this Gog- Magog War. If Gog in the land of Magog are Scythians, in a sense, it is going to be their version of the Civil War we had here in the United States of America, and, they won’t even know it. But that is not what is going to happen either. It is this error which incorrectly relates Magog to the Scythians, who were erroneously believed to be progenitors of Russia that led President Ronald Regan and others to refer to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

Let me tell you, there is a certain level of evil in every government in the modern world today; even here in the United States of America, which is part of the Lost Tribes. No matter how much you want to disguise it as a good government-ran country, I’ve got news for you, there is plenty of evil. More now than ever. President Ronald Regan just couldn’t recognize what Scripture says. In the last days we will deal with the 8th Beast. So this Gog of the land of Magog that Israel will deal with would have to be part of the 8th Beast—and which the Book of Revelation has plenty to say about. The identification of Magog with Lydia and not Scythia is consistent with the ancient texts of the Assyrians, who at various times were either the allies or the foes of the Scythians yet had peaceful dealing with the Lydians.

What I have given you and what most people have today is only a general history of the beasts. The Assyrian Empire (see map) had major control of the area in dark green. They came and took the ten tribes of the House of Israel into bondage through several different waves during the early 8th century B.C. and exiled them in the general area within Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southern Turkmenistan as we know it today. But as the lost ten tribes became known as Scythians, they dispersed themselves between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and also on the eastward boundaries of the Caspian Sea on up through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, eventually meeting up above and between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea areas of southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and so forth of today. They became a force of their own. 28

The assumption (because we don’t really get that deep into history, even those who preach on the beasts of the Old Testament) is that the Assyrian Empire became internally weakened or corrupt and was beginning to collapse on itself at the same time the Babylonian Empire had become more developed and stronger, and then the Babylonians just came in and totally wiped out the Assyrian Empire overcoming them by military power and force. To a certain degree that is true, but the ten tribes (known as Scythians) were gaining in their own little power structure up in the section they were dispersed to. And depending on which historians you want to believe, they broke up into three different groups (I believe it is three, some say two). Those groups would come together on occasion and just pound the Assyrian Empire. They were once their slaves but they became free. Then they regrouped between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and north of that, and they became a little mighty force within themselves that kept pounding the Assyrians, almost like what we hear the Barbarians did to Europe, to Rome. They kept getting into all kinds of scuffles with the Assyrian Empire. In fact, they went up against the Assyrian Empire three different times in three different battles and they won, not the Assyrians. Now the Scythians were not looking to take over the area of the Assyrian Empire; they didn’t want to come and conqueror, they just wanted to stay (as they thought at that time) in that general area they were in and not go back down there anymore. Well God’s Word said they wouldn’t and they didn’t. Whether they realize it or not, God was in control of history. Long story short, the Scythians are what weakened the Assyrian Empire. Then as the Babylonian Empire gained strength, it was easy pickins. Most people, if any, have never heard that the Assyrian Empire crumbled within themselves because eventually toward the end of their empire they were getting attacked from both the north and the south, from the north by the Scythians and from the south by the Babylonian Empire. The identification of Magog with Lydia and not Scythia is consistent with the ancient texts of the Assyrians, who at various times were either the allies or the foes of the Scythians yet had peaceful dealing with the Lydians. The identification of Magog as Lydia, and not Scythian is also consistent with the writings of the ancient historian Herodotus (ca 490-424 BC), a Greek who was born in, lived in, and traveled throughout all of ancient Asia Minor. Herodotus, who is considered the Father of History, wrote detailed information about the three different Scythian tribes [some say two] and the ten different tribes that neighbored them, including their ever changing and opportunistic alliances. Herodotus says that Magog (Lydia), as led by the historical figure Gog (Gyges to the Greek, Gugu to the Assyrians) and the Scythians, were in fact enemies! In Gyges of Lydia we have the leader the Assyrians called “Gugu, King of Ludu,” and “Gugu of Magugu,” the Bible’s Gog of Magog.

The Bible interpretation calling for a Russian invasion of Israel was framed at a time when little was known about Magog, the Scythians, or Russian origins. Many who have held to this interpretation have also tried to understand who the other countries listed in Ezekiel 38-39 were (Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, Togarmah). Some have associated Magog and/or Rosh with Russia, some also erroneously associate Meshech with the Russian city of Moscow, and Tubal with the Siberian city of Tobolsk. Promoted by the 1909 and the 1917 editions of the Scofield Reference 29

Bible, these erroneous associations are representative of a type of arm chair “name game” archeology that was quite popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

The first Russian were a people of a different racial stock, linguistic stock, cultural stock, and time than the Scythians. Based on excavations and historical records, archeologists and historians are absolutely sure that the progenitors of the modern Russians were the Scandinavians who border the Russians on the northwest. We know that Russia did not develop population centers until around 800AD. By that time, the Scythians had died out [long gone], and the ancient nations of Asia Minor referred to in Ezekiel 38-39, (Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Togarmah) all had ceased to exist.

Some may question, “Are you sure the Ten Tribes are the Scythians? After all, I’ve never heard anything like that. What makes you the expert?” I never claimed to be an expert. I only claim to be a person that keeps digging and digging until I find the truth. You can call that what you want to call it. Most of these Gog and Magog War theories taught out there are based on one line in Josephus. My personal opinion about that is I think it was copied wrong, but that doesn’t really matter. It was not the set time, not even in the early 1800’s, for the truth to be exposed. I believe it was not until 1948 and 1967 when one could possibly lay out all the timelines and look back and see what God has already accomplished and says wow, if this is not faith building, then what is? God keeps His Word. Who were these Scythians? Here is a little introduction on the Scythians. The ten tribes of Israel essentially vanished from their former Kingdom of Israel by circa 721 BC. They had been a powerful kingdom in the Eastern Mediterranean region for centuries prior to that time. They had been allied to the city-states of Tyre, Sidon, etc. in what historians now call the Phoenician Empire. Their alliance dominated the ancient worlds maritime trade routes and, from the time of King David onward, became a powerful military power on land as well. They were exceedingly blessed by God during the time of Kings David and Solomon, but a long succession of sinful kings led to a steady decline in the strength and influence of the kingdom of Israel.

During an approximately 20 year span between 740-720 B.C., the ten tribes of Israel went into foreign exile in several waves. At the beginning of this period, the Assyrians took captive the tribe of Naphtali and the Gileadite tribes of Gad, Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh (II Kings 15:29). By 30

circa 721 B.C., all of the ten tribes of Israel who had formed the northern kingdom of Israel had been removed from their lands (II Kings 17:18). While the house of Judah remained in the Promised Land for a time, many have puzzled over the fate and future of the ten tribes of Israel. Where did they go? While the Bible foretold that the tribes of Israel would scatter, literally, to all four directions (Genesis 28:14), the remainder of this study is devoted to [...] a confederation of tribes which emerged afterward [after their exile] in the region of South Russia: the Scythians.

And then they became known as Scythians. It is commonly assumed by many that the ten tribes were abandoned by God, or that they died out. Neither assumption is correct.

The ten tribes of Israel were led by the two tribes which descended from Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh. These tribes were given the Divine birthright blessings by Jacob (later called Israel) when he died (Genesis 48:8-22). The birthright blessings remained with these tribes from that time forward. These blessings included large populations, material wealth, national power, etc., and God gave them to Abraham and his descendants unconditionally and permanently. National sins and rebelliousness could and did cause God to withdraw these blessings at times, but they could not be permanently lost. This is an important point which God himself made in a prophecy concerning the about-to-be exiled Israelites in Hosea 1.

The prophecy in Hosea 1 was written decades before the ten tribes went into exile for their growing sinfulness. Hosea 1:1-9 prophesied that God was about to exile the ten tribes of Israel from their land...

You should read Hosea for yourself. He was told to marry a whore and have children. He gave those children names and there was a reason behind those names ...but the tribe of Judah would be allowed to remain. Most people think that this prophecy is a grim judgment on the ten tribes that God was forsaking them. However, Hosea 1:10-11 pronounces a Divine blessing that would be poured out on the ten tribes after their exile.

Hosea 1:10-11, “Yet the number of the children of Israel [not that little land about the size of New Jersey in the Middle East] shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people [that is one of the names of the children he had], there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head [this has not happened yet], and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.” I will get to Jezreel in the future, it is not part of this particular section of this series. 31

Hosea 1:10 repeats the very language of Genesis 22:17 that Abrahams descendants would be as numerous as the sand of the sea.

This prophecy confirms that God had not forgotten his covenant with Abraham's birthright descendants. He affirmed that he would continue to pour out the blessings of the Divine birthright blessings upon the ten tribes after their exile. This promise gives us a major clue about locating the transplanted ten tribes: They must be a numerous people with large populations!

Let us examine another clue. Genesis 21:12 prophesied that Abraham's descendants would be known by the name of Abraham's son, Isaac.

Genesis 21:12, “And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman [remember there is a friction between Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael had to go] ; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice [whatever Abraham wasn’t seeing, Sarah saw behind the scenes what could possibly involve the safety and wellbeing of Isaac when he was a child]; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” ‘Shall’ and ‘called’ are the same Hebrew word in that verse incidentally. It should read, ‘in Isaac, name thy seed to be called’. Called what? Something that refers back to Isaac and his seed. Genesis 21:12 prophesied that Abraham's descendants would be known by the name of Abraham's son, Isaac.

Since the birthright blessing was given to Ephraim and Manasseh, the name of Isaac would primarily be placed on these two tribes. Genesis 48:16 records that Jacob (called Israel) blessed Ephraim and Manasseh with these words: Let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac. This blessing affirms that these two tribes will bear the name of Isaac upon them throughout history. This had occurred already before the ten tribes were sent into exile. A prophecy in Amos 7:16 refers to the ten tribes of Israel (I.e. the house of Israel in verse 10) as the house of Isaac. In ancient times, vowels were not written, so the consonants of Isaac's name would be S-C or S-K (dependent on the language in which the word appeared). Applying the prophetic clue in Genesis 21:12, we need to look for the exiled ten tribes of Israel by locating tribes which have Isaac's name attached to them.

What Direction Did the Ten Tribes Go?

It is believed that groups of migrating Israelites went to a number of diverse locations, the Bible does give us evidence that most of the exiled Israelites migrated generally to the north and east of the old Promised Land. II Kings 15:29 states that the Gileadite tribes and the tribe of Naphtali were carried captive to Assyria. The Assyrian Empire was located to the east of the kingdom of Israel, so these tribes were carried eastward into Asia. When 32

the inhabitants of Samaria were carried captive, II Kings 17:6 states they were transplanted to the regions of Halah, Habor and the cities of the Medes. Media was long identified with the region south of the Caspian Sea, which was in a somewhat northeastern direction from Samaria, but it was still mostly eastward. The apocryphal book of II Esdras (13:39-46) records that many members of the ten tribes escaped from the Assyrians and migrated independently to a land called Arzareth. Secular evidence indicates that this was in the region of the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains.

A Medieval Jewish historian named Eldad is cited as the source of a report that at the time of the fall of Samaria, the ten tribes of Israel evaded the calamity, going off with their flocks, and turning nomads, and that the chief whom they appointed could muster 120,000 horse and 100,000 foot. To be escorted by 220,000 soldiers, the main body of escaping Israelites must have numbered well over a million people.

Some tribes were taken and some decided to leave on their own, escape Samaria and head north; and they did with a large amount of people in tow. The Black Sea region to which they are reputed to have escaped is almost straight north of the old kingdom of Israel.

We usually see maps as flat, but if you have a rounded map, you would see that as almost directly north of Israel. The Bible has an account which indicates that Eldad's report is factual. In Jeremiah 3, God sent a message of reconciliation to the ten tribes of Israel even as he proclaimed that the end of the kingdom of Judah was near. These messages to Israel and Judah were given approximately a century after the ten tribes went into exile.

It is most noteworthy that God told Jeremiah that the message to the ten tribes (I.e. Israel), should be sent to the north. God knew where the ten tribes were a century after their exile and he told Jeremiah that they lived to the north of Jeremiah's location in Jerusalem. Draw a line northward from Jerusalem and you will come to the Black Sea region, exactly where ancient sources place a large body of migrating Israelites. The people living in that region were known as Scythian or Sacae tribes.

Remember, vowels were not written in ancient times, so they used the consonants S-C or S-K. They were ‘known as’ the Scythians or Sacae tribes. Were these the Israelite tribes? Let’s go to Jeremiah 3 to verify in Scripture. It deals with the unfaithfulness of both houses, and then we get to verses 11-14. 33

“And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion...” Most people read through this Jeremiah section and believe the House of Israel was still in their northern kingdom areas, where the ten tribes existed in Israel. But when you put this in a timeline, it creates a problem because it was written 100 years after the exile and the tribes were no longer there. So who is Jeremiah saying this to; “Go and proclaim these words toward the north”. The ‘north’ had to be something further north than where the House of Israel existed 100 years prior. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever. You can read the bible through in a year if you want, but if you don’t put it in context, if you don’t put it in a timeline, a lot of this is going to go right over your head and you’ll miss the important facts—and that is what it is, a factual history timeline being laid down that points to something besides what some people believe is still existing in Israel when Jeremiah wrote this. I’m sorry, the ten tribes are not there. That has been proven. That is already history. So where did the backsliding House of Israel go? To the north first (or second depending on where they were coming from, from their exile point). And of course, if they are north, then we have to understand where they went and what they became known as. I say they became ‘known as’ the Scythians or the Sacae tribes (and there were different groups of them), and they gave the Assyrians a hell of a run for their money—not the ones that were still in exile, but the ones that came out of exile. They eventually escaped through the Caspian and Black sea areas, and that is why there are three groups of Scythians of different tribes. But the ones that went out of the northern area of the House of Israel, where the ten tribes of the north existed, and escaped into those areas of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea before they were captured by the Assyrians, they were still in a backslidden condition, that is why Jeremiah is writing to them and saying, “Return oh backslidden Israel.” . This is just an introduction into the Scythians. I will go a little bit further into who the Scythians were and I will point out a few important facts that really identifies who they were. They were the Lost Tribes of Israel. God is faithful. He gave plenty of warning. His rebellious people didn’t give heed to the warning and they were disciplined. He divorced them, but he couldn’t stay divorced. And there is a whole slew of promises of how He would reconnect with them again. And He has.

To be continued... 34

The Last Days Study Guide The Scythians

1. While God’s promises are unconditional, what affect can rebellion and sin have on those promises?

2. If the Lost Tribes are literal Scythians, what would Ezekiel be stating about this war?

3. If Gog of Magog are the Scythians, what would Ezekiel be stating about this war?

4. Name the historian misquoted in the book The Destiny of Nations?

5. Who began the Russian state?

6. What does ‘son of man’ mean in Ezekiel 38:1?

7. What was the capital of Lydia?

8. Approximately how long did it take for the House of Israel to be taken into captivity?

9. What prophet was sent to the Black Sea region 100 years after the House of Israel was exiled?

10. Give the causes for the destruction of the Assyrian Empire.

11. Why should Genesis 21:12 read, “in Isaac name thy seed to be called”?

12. Where were the inhabitants of Samaria transplanted?

13. Who informs us that some of the House of Israel evaded captivity?

14. The House of Israel became known as Scythians or ______.

15. What does this study reveal about the nature of God?

Sons of Isaac

Ezekiel 38:1-4a, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back...” From political leaders to pastors behind their pulpits to authors that write on this subject concerning last day events and eschatology, 99.9% have said what we read here in verse 2 (at least the Gog, the land of Magog’ part of it) has to be Russia. I have been saying it is not. I told you in the first message and reminded you in the second message that this whole concept started because of what Josephus wrote in one line of his works on the History of the Jews, saying that the Greeks claimed that the Magogites (the people from Magog) were Scythians. Now everyone knows the Scythians were a group of people that populated southern Russia. So that is how they make their Russian connection. And of course, that caught on especially in the 1800’s but it really took off about 70-80 years ago when Russia turned into a communistic nation. So it really gained in popularity to call the Russians the Magogites: “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him—they are it, we finally have our explanation now who this is referring to.” So they are either just too plain lazy to do the homework or they just don’t care enough about history to look into who these Scythians were; because if they did, as I’ve been saying now for two messages, they would find the Lost Tribes of Israel were Scythians (the ten northern tribes that were either taken into captivity or they disbursed themselves to run from the captivity that was coming). The group that ran went north between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The groups that were taken in the captivity were mostly populated in northern Iran, eastern Iraq. Then the Assyrian Empire eventually lost its power and the tribes migrated north east of the Caspian Sea. I told you last time that there were three major Scythian groups; and ones that went into captivity, and ones that ran from captivity before they were captive. With that short introduction, I am going to pick up where we left off last time. Most of the Israelite tribes [the northern tribes, because the tribes were not called Israelites in the south, they were the House of Judah] scattered into Asia circa 721 B.C. If you look in your encyclopedias, it records the Scythians arrived in the region of the southern Russian area about 700 BC.

An historian of the Scythians wrote the following: "The Scythians did not become a recognizable national entity before the eighth century B.C. By the seventh century B.C. they had established themselves firmly in southern Russia. Assyrian documents place their appearance on the shores of Lake Urmia [just south of Armenia] in the time of King Sargon (722-705 B.C.) a date which closely corresponds with that of the first establishment of the first group of Scythians in southern Russia". 37

These accounts (and others) record that the Scythians appeared in South Russia at the very time that the ten tribes of Israel were fleeing from the final Assyrian invasion. The account of scholars dates the Scythian arrival in Armenia and south Russia to the very time that the Bible states the

Israelites were removed from their homeland. (Some of the tribes were already captive to the Assyrians and they had no choice re: where they were relocated). Scholars agree the Scythians were firmly established in south Russia by the 7th century B.C. The message of God to the ten tribes (Israel) found in Jeremiah 3 was given near the end of the 7th century B.C., and it indicates they were located north of Jerusalem. The Scythians lived straight north of Jerusalem in the Black Sea region

Israel’s migration happened in different waves. There is a wave that went westward but I am not going to get into that now. Then we see a black line from Samaria going north into the Armenian area. Straight north of that, we see Scyths. You can also see Sacae, a name the Israelites became known as (even though they were at that time considered Scythians), which is a name that identifies them back to Isaac, which is scripturally sound. As they went westward, they became the Gauls, the Celts, and so-forth. Now the tribes that were taken before the final dispersion of the northern tribes, the ones that were running before they were conquered and taken into captivity, they went eastward. You can see the eastward line there, across the Euphrates, across the Tigress into the Medes area. They became known as the Cimmerians. Those were the ones that once they were released from their captivity went north, up on the east side of the Caspian Sea (though no arrow shows that). They went up and they met up with the rest of the Scythians up there, the Sacae, which were the northern tribes of Israel. 38

With the above map you see a more completed migration of what happened to the Scythians. We see the launching point, Israel, and groups of Israelites going up between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. And of course the Cimmerians caught up and they are all considered Scythians then for the most part in southern Russia. Then as they migrated west, they became known as the Celts all the way until you get to Scandinavia and the western part of Europe, and then eventually to what we call the British Isles today. Now pre-captivity they also migrated, but like I said that is not part of this teaching. That is the green arrows that you see here that went westward through the Mediterranean Sea, through the pillars of Hercules, around Spain, around Portugal today (that is what they’re known as), and into the British Isles. The Scythians were also known as the Sacae or the Saka. The terms Saka [Sacae] and Scyths were regarded as synonymous. The famous Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote that the Persians call all the Scythians Sacae . In these accounts, it is apparent that the Scythian tribes are known by a form of the Hebrew patriarch, Isaac. The Scythian tribes known as the Sacae or Saka bore the name of Isaac upon them, fulfilling the prophecies in Genesis 21:12 and 48:16 that the Israelite tribes would bear that name. If this is all the evidence there was, the similarity could be a coincidence. However, there is much more evidence that the Scythian Sacae were the displaced Israelite tribes.

One could argue that the emergence of the Scythians in the Black Sea region at the same point in history that the ten tribes of Israel fled the kingdom of Israel was just a coincidence. However, the presence of uniquely Israelite cultural traits and names among the Scythians confirms 39

that the Scythians were, indeed, displaced and relocated Israelites from the ten-tribes of Israel.

It has been noted above that the Scythians were known as Saka or Sacae, and that this name of Isaac would be imprinted on the ten tribes of Israel throughout history. The Scythians' homelands were not limited to just the Black Sea region. They began to expand eastward across the steppes quickly as their population burgeoned, and they also established themselves in Asia Minor and the Caucasus Mountains. An early Scythian capital was named Sakiz, again proclaiming to the world the significance of the name of the Israelite patriarch, Isaac, to their history.

The Greek story of Xenophon mentions the Sacians of Asia who suffered very severely at the hands of the Assyrians, and a Roman writer, Pliny, stated the Scythians were descended from slaves. These accounts reveal strong linkages between the Scythians I.e. (the Sacians) and the Israelites. The Israelites were, indeed, descended from Israelite slaves in Egypt who were freed by Divine action via the Exodus in the time of Moses. They also had suffered severely at the hands of the Assyrians because Assyria repeatedly waged war against the kingdom of Israel in biblical times until its tribes were either taken captive by Assyria or were driven into forced exile. Herodotus noted the presence of Sacae in both the army and navy of the Persian monarch, Xerxes, which marched against the Greeks circa 480 B.C.

And maybe, just maybe, that is why Josephus got confused, there were still some Greeks calling them Magogites because of their relationship with the Persian monarch Xerxes—not by choice more than likely because some were still enslaved. Then they march against the Greeks in 480 B.C. Now the Greeks were not going to say wonderful things about the Sacae, that was their enemy just as Xerxes was. One can find references to the Sacae of Herodotus as the Sacans. One writer who uses the term Sacans as synonymous with the Sacae is Paul Cartledge, who uses that term in his book, Thermopylae.

Herodotus also recorded that the Scythians recoiled from using or keeping swine. He wrote: "They [the Scythians] make no offerings of pigs, nor will they keep them in their country" . Since the Scythians not only refused to allow pigs to be used in sacrificial purposes, but banned them entirely from their territory, it is evident that the Scythians did not eat the flesh of swine either. This avoidance of swines flesh is a characteristic Torah-based, Israelite dietary trait. Also, Herodotus recorded that the Scythians did not tolerate their own people indulging in idolatrous Greek religious ceremonies.

It is also important to note that there were many different ethnic groups and tribes called Scythians by historians. Herodotus himself notes there 40

was a difference between the Scythians and other tribes who lived in the region dominated by the Scythians. Although Herodotus wrote that the stupidest nations in the world lived in the Black Sea region, he exempted the Scythians from this negative classification. The term Scythian came to describe a lifestyle as much as a national ancestry, and all the peoples and tribes in the steppe region came to be known as Scythians. The term Saka or Sacae identifies the Israelite tribes in the region as that name preserves an ancestry from the Israelite patriarch, Isaac.

Secular reports that the Black Sea Scythians avoided the use of swine for any purpose and forbade idolatrous customs substantiates Jeremiah 3:11's record wherein God stated—

Remember, they were carried into bondage or displaced from their homeland because of their worship of idols. God would rescue them over the centuries, time after time, and they’d get their act straight, follow the one true God, but give it about ten or twenty years and lo and behold, they are off worshipping all these other false gods and idols again, and God had had enough. So following leaving their homeland, they now are trying to apply these laws that they remembered, and Jeremiah 3:11 records, "backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah". This is dated to approximately 620 B.C., the time when the Scythians had settled into the Black Sea regions. Since Jeremiah 3 records that Israel was then located toward the north of Jerusalem, and the Scythians lived to the north of Jerusalem in the Black Sea region, it is apparent that the Scythians were the ten tribes of Israel addressed by God in Jeremiah 3.

The rivers emptying into the Black Sea formerly had names such as the Ister, Tyras, Borysthenes and Tanais. After the Scythians entered that region, these rivers were given new Israelite names based on the name of the Israelite tribe of Dan. The new names of these rivers were the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper and the Don. The Israelite tribe of Dan had a tendency to re-name geographical locations after its own tribal name (Joshua 19:47). Collier’s Encyclopedia confirms there is no doubt the Scythians gave these rivers their modern names. It states: "The names of the rivers Danube, Dnestr, Dnepr and Don are Scythian". These rivers are known by these Scythian names to this day on modern maps, and all these Scythian names are based on the Israelite tribe of Dan.

The Scythians lived in the region of the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains. By the time of the first century B.C., a Caucasus Mountain kingdom was named Iberia and its kings routinely bore the dynastic name of Pharesmenes. The Iberians were known to be Scythians or Scythian allies. The term Iberia is based on the name of Eber, the namesake of the Hebrews. This same name, Iberia, had previously been placed upon the modern region of Spain and Portugal, which were formerly part of the Phoenician Empire of Israel, Tyre and Sidon. The name Pharesmenes 41 includes the exact name of Phares, the ancestor of King David, to whom the promise of royal descendants was given.

When Cyrus the Great reigned over the Persian Empire, he invaded Scythian tribes living near the Caspian Sea -- circa 528 B.C. The primary Scythian tribe was named the Massagetae, and they had a Queen named Tomyris. Consider these names. The leading Scythian tribe known as the Massagetae bore a striking similarity to the name of the leading Israelite tribe of Manasseh. Also, King David was promised in I Kings 8:25 that his progeny would perpetually include rulers over the people of Israel (I.e. the ten tribes of Israel). In Genesis 48:14-16, the term Israel was primarily placed on the leading tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Tamar was a common and famous name among females in King David's lineage. The mother of Pharez (David's ancestor) was named Tamar (Genesis 38:6-29), David's own daughter was named Tamar (II Samuel 13), and a granddaughter of David was also named Tamar (II Samuel 14:27).

If the Massagetae were the Israelite tribe of Manasseh, a leading tribe of the ten tribes of Israel, biblical prophecy regarding King David's descendants being rulers over Israel would argue that this tribe would have royalty descended from King David. At the time of King Cyrus invasion of the Massagetae and other Scythian tribes, the Massagetae's Queen was named Tomyris. The similarity of the Israelite name Tamar and the Scythian/Massagetae Queen named Tomyris is obvious and striking. When the vowels of the names are removed, the consonants are identical: T-M-R.

The above examples show that names of King David's lineage were found among the rulers of the Scythians, whether they were in the Scythians' western regions (the Caucasus Mountains by the Black Sea) or their eastern regions where the Massagetae lived east of the Caspian Sea. The presence of names from King David's lineage among the Scythian tribes confirms that the Scythians were descended from the ten tribes of Israel, as God's promise indicated David's progeny would specifically rule over the ten tribes of Israel throughout history.

It is assumed by some that the Scythians migrated into the Black Sea region from Central Asia. Historical evidence easily shows that assumption to be incorrect. The Scythians were famous in the ancient world for their magnificent gold artwork. If the Scythians originated in Central Asia, their self-portrayals should show Scythians with Mongol or Oriental faces. This is not the case. On this gold artwork, the Scythians uniformly depict themselves as Semites who are often bearded.

The Scythians were hardly wild barbarians from Central Asia. Like the Israelites of old, they were skilled agriculturalists who not only tended herds and flocks of livestock, but also grew crops. Indeed, they were grain 42

exporters to other peoples in the ancient world. The Scythians exported 600,000 bushels of grain to Athens on an annual basis just decades after the time of Herodotus. Wild barbarians from the interior of Asia would hardly cultivate and harvest row crops, negotiate and fulfill international trade contracts, etc. The Scythians were quite civilized people.

Georges Charriere, author of the book, Scythian Art: Crafts of the Eurasian Nomads writes this observation about the skilled artwork of the Scythians: "There is no ground for concluding that this style of art had its birth in the Altai or in any other region of Siberia. Along with the other elements of Scythian culture, it originated in the peripheral regions of Assyria, among the Iranian-language tribes settled in the north of Iran" (Emphasis added). This is an important observation! It has long been known that many of the Israelites went into captivity into Assyrian regions or the Medo-Persian region of Iran (II Kings 15:29, 18:11). Charriere notes that the Scythian artwork (and other elements of Scythian culture) had its origin in the very regions into which the captive Israelites were first placed. Therefore, the Scythian artwork, their physical appearances and other aspects of their culture show that the Scythians migrated to their Black Sea/ Russian steppe regions from the south, not from the more northern recesses of Central Asia or Siberia.

The Scythians were not Barbarians. I had you go to Colossians 3:11, “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” Here Paul confirms the Scythians were not Barbarians. In fact, this verse says Scythians and Barbarians are opposites. Now this is Paul writing in the first century A.D., somewhere between 50 and 60 A.D. There are still traces of Scythians left, enough to influence Paul, and I think he knew who the Scythians were (or the remains of them) in the first century A.D. Greek nor Jew...Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Paul knew they were not Barbarians—even though some people still today try to make the claim that the Scythians came from a barbaric invasion that came from the east, all the way (if you know your geography) from Mongolia. Sorry, number 1, your timing is all wrong, and number two, that is not where they came from. They came from the south. They came from Israel. They were the ten northern tribes known as Israel, which became known as the Scythians, but also the Sacae, and eventually a host of other names. And, they renamed things along the way once they took over an area, geographical locations, rivers, you name it. They brought their culture with them. They decided to start practicing some of the Law once they left – either leaving because of their captivity period was over, or they escaped before their captivity through the Black Sea and the Caucuses Mountains, settling in that southern area. It is not called southern Russia any longer, we now have countries that are called Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and so forth. People always question who Ephraim is because popular theories say that Ephraim is in the British Isles, and Manasseh is the United States. I have flipped that. Are you going to lose your salvation over it? No. But I think it is important as far as history goes. A thing to note about the tribes of Manasseh is they settled north of Iran, east of the Caspian Sea. The Ephraimites settled 43 west of it. Just take that same settlement set-up and that is where you have the British Isles and the United States. And whether you believe Ephraim is Great Britain or the United States of America, it really doesn’t matter much any longer because of what America became, the melting pot. There are still certain elements we can find that these tribes took with them as they went west, when they finally reached the British Isles; their customs, artifacts, and so forth. They brought them with them from Israel before their exile but, that is getting ahead of the story. The Lost Tribes of Israel became Scythians. I listen to the news media. They see our country, the United States of America (that is where I live) is falling apart and needs to go back to its roots, the independent days from 1776 to the next 20 or 30 years after that. And I am saying, Yes, God had control in history of establishing where Ephraim would branch out to evangelize the world along with Manasseh, and they would fight each other, but the thing is this country still doesn’t know what its roots are. Do you think finding your roots is going back to the days of the Founding Fathers of 1776? It is an important date as I already proved earlier in The Last Days series. This country still doesn’t even know its roots yet. So how are you going to go back to something you are not even aware of yet? It will, God says it will, but it hasn’t happened yet. And it is a shame the scores of pastors that are preaching right now that Russia is the enemy that Ezekiel is suppose to set his face against and prophesy against it. Listen, Russia is no shining light on a hill, but God in these last days is going to deal with the Beast. He is going to deal with just about every nation in His own way. No one is going to be scott-free. There will be some mingling of countries that don’t even have troops on the ground in this Gog-Magog War. But primarily the driving force is the latter end of what still exists of Islam, the 8th Beast. I will continue a little more with the history of the Scythians and then I will move on. There is plenty of history that you can research on your own. Go to the library, spend a day or loan out the books and do your own studies, but compare it to the Israelite culture, and you will see the similarities. They are there and it is plain to see. You need eyes to see and ears to hear what the truth is. All of this just builds our faith. It adds another piece to it, that God has his hands on every year by year history that goes by. He knows what His timeline is. We get anxious. We want to see things moving along. But He has His set-times and He has His own timeline. And things will unfold. Six months ago, you wouldn’t even think the Islamic State or ISIS would gain that much of a foothold in such a short amount of time. When things happen, they usually happen quickly because the time is short. So keep looking up. Our redemption draweth nigh. It is important to know who the Scythians were because they were not the Magogites. That is a great error that unfortunately has been preached and taught for the last 50-60 years, pointing to some other nation because of what one line of Josephus said or wrote down, which was in error—and all the historians know that. Either Josephus was flat out wrong or somebody copied his work down in error, or whatever happened it doesn’t matter, he is wrong. And there is nothing to back up his statement and that is the whole thing. Try to defend Josephus. See how far you go. See how much evidence you can gather. It’s just not there. The opposite is true. But I believe things happen for a reason and it just was not time yet for the exposure of who these tribes were, what they became, where they went, and what they eventually did, because God keeps His Word. His blessings show on the nations that took in these tribes or they conquered. And we are so worried about the native Indians in this country. Well, let me send you a news 44 alert. From the beginning of time people have been conquering people, people have been taking over other people’s land. It’s been about the only thing I agree on with Darwin, survival of the fittest. In this case, God determines how history plays out. He is in control. And the more you study His Word and the more you add secular history to it... if you can’t see that, you are blind as a bat. You better pray God opens your eyes because you obviously need it. Those of you that listen to me regularly don’t need that speech. But those of you on the borderline, study God’s Word; I mean a serious study of it along side history. It is not a coincidence time after time after time how history fits right in with God’s Word. It’s no coincidence. It is not only God’s Word but it is the best history book you can put your hands on. Spend some time in it or get yourself in tune with someone preaching it rightly divided.

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide Sons of Isaac

1. What evidences do we have that a good portion of the Scythians were in actuality the Lost Tribes of Israel?

2. What peoples dwelt east of the Caspian Sea?

3. What did the Persians call the Scythians?

4. What two things does St. Paul’s listing of the Scythians convey?

5. What was the name of the first century B.C. Caucasus mountain kingdom?

6. What occupations did the Scythians earn their living by?

7. The tribe of Dan had an interesting habit. What was it?

8. Name the Queen of the Massagetae.

9. What oversight do westerners make when tracing their lineage?

10. S-C and S-K holds a particular significance. What is it?

11. When did the Scythians become a recognizable people?

12. What does Scythian self-portrayal artwork reveal about their origins?

Still Near

Open your bible to II Chronicles 34. Verses 6-9, “And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the [asherah] groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God. And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem.” “So. What is so hard to understand about those verses?” Nothing, but there is a problem here. Those who have been listening to me for a while have come to realize that I put things in a timeline. I like chronological order. When you put things you find in the Bible in a timeline or a chronological order, you can necessarily line them up most of the time with secular history. And once again, it points to the Bible being correct and the most accurate history, in fact the accurate history and a source we can rely on without any doubts. But here is the problem. I have been saying the last few messages that the ten lost tribes of Israel that were either taken into captivity or ran from captivity before they were taken by the Assyrian Empire were Scythians. They also became known as the Sacae – a name that identifies them with the promise we find back in Genesis that labels them coming from Isaac, as was promised. So what is the problem here in II Chron. 34:6-9? What is the problem? Chronologically, it just does not fit. “What do you mean?” Any good biblical historian will tell you that these events we find in these verses happened around 635 B.C. So, do you see the problem, those of you who have been listening and follow this last days series from day one? It mentions Ephraim, Manasseh, and the separation of the northern tribes from the southern tribes in these few verses. But the problem is around 721 B.C., the northern tribes dispersed either in captivity or they ran for the hills; or in this case, between the Caspian and the Black Sea, north of the land of Israel. This is how critics take the Bible and say it isn’t a reliable source: if they weren’t there any longer, how is it we find them. And if you don’t do the research and you take the critics’ word for it, whatever they are spewing, you’d be easily convinced the Bible is not an accurate record also, and therefore think it can’t be trusted, that anything you read in it is manmade religion and should not be taken seriously. 635 B.C. approximately (give or take a year or two), and, the children of Israel, the northern tribes were either dispersed or taken into captivity by 721 B.C. What is that, 80 some years? Close to 100 years difference? I’m sorry, we are not playing horseshoes, so close doesn’t count here. And this is when King Josiah was bringing revival in the Kingdom of Judah. 48

Now go to II Chronicles 35:17-18. “And the children of Israel that were present”—that were present. Some translations (which are closer to being accurate) read, “that were found, kept the passover at that time and kept the feast of unleaven bread seven days. I am going to tell you the reason they could be found in a minute. “And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.” This was close to 15 years later from the first scriptures that we just read in II Chronicles 34 to the later part of verse 18, “And all Judah and Israel that were present”. Now you’re talking about 100 years later after the dispersion happened, whether captivity or they ran for it. What is going on here? Is God’s Word not reliable? Or is there a lack of concern to research and to shut up the critics with information that is really not that hard to gather (if you can catch the discrepancies here to fill in the gaps and show God’s Word is a reliable source)? Now many of you are beyond that. You really don’t care if there are discrepancies here, but you trust and have confidence in Jesus, and so do I but, I have told you from day one there is nothing wrong with the Scriptures. There has been a cover up and a lackluster preaching concern to uncover what the cover up has covered. Now this is ten or fifteen years later. The question is, what were Israelites (the northern tribes, or members of it) doing here at this Passover feast around 620 B.C., or just a few years before that actually? What gives? If you believe in Christian science fiction doctrines presented out there on eschatology, this doesn’t really matter to you. But if you are concerned for the truth, it does matter once the light has been turned on and you see for yourself. If you don’t believe me about the dates, research it yourself. I think I have proven to be reliable. Not only that, turn to Daniel 9. This is where Daniel prays for his people, forgiveness for their wickedness and sins. And in verse 7, “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee [lit. thou has righteousness], but unto us confusion of faces...” Hum. There was confusion of faces in Daniel’s day, how much more now? “... as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,”—understood, because the Babylonian empire took Judah into captivity. But it goes on to say, “and unto all Israel,”—and here is the kicker in all this—“ that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.” If he had only said “that are afar off throughout all the countries,” there is no problem with that. But even during Daniel’s time period there were some Israelites, northern tribe people, that were still near. Even though they still call them by their original names (the Israelites, the house of Israel, or Ephraim and Manasseh), could these people be referring to the Scythians in their writings? I think God kept it that way for a reasons by the way, so they wouldn’t be identified. Remember, because of the house of Israel’s sins, they became ‘not my people’. Remember Hosea? Go there. It is the book right after the book of Daniel. Hosea is told to have some children, go marry a whore, and then have some children of whoredoms, to illustrate what God was trying to communicate. Verse 4 reads, “And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name 49

Loruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.” And eventually, that is what God did—but He would have mercy on the house of Judah. Verse 9, “Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea...” If the lost tribes dwindled down and disappeared, then God’s Word is a lie. “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered [that is a whole lot of folk]; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” Jesus Christ is the living God. And of course, as I said previously, “Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head...” That has not happened yet. Did these major and minor prophets, historians of biblical history , even though they called them by their original names, know they were the Scythians of the north? Could it be these Scythians of the north—(even though they were taken in captivity, and then eventually released from captivity; or they ran for the hills and ran north between the Caspian Sea and the Black sea, and also east of the Caspian sea)—became three major powerhouses of Scythian tribes in that area? (The one’s east of the Caspian Sea were called the Cimmerians.) Could these groups of people from the lost tribes of Israel all of a sudden appear out of nowhere because as ‘not God’s people’ they were going to be punished and driven away from their land? Now God would eventually forgive them and take them back and they would become the sons of the living God. Within a few hundred years those tribes eventually started migrating, most of them, westward into eastern Europe, into western Europe, and then to the British Isles. Now there is a group that also eventually went westward through the Mediterranean Sea around the Iberian Peninsula and to the British Isles; but we are concentrating mostly on the Scythians that settled between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and just east of the Caspian Sea for a few hundred years. And the reason why I brought it up in the first place is because of Josephus’ one- line comment that says the Scythians were the Magogites. I think it was a copyist error. And of course because they populated the southern Russia area, the Christian science fiction people of eschatology have made a wrongful assumption that Russia is Gog of Magog for the most part. I have been coming against that, but what is new. I’ll use history and not Christian science fiction as my proof of who is what, where they are at, what they should be called, and how and what it means today in our time. Now let us pick up where I left off. Interesting questions. The timelines don’t fit unless you can find a reason why they do fit. But I will get to that. Many students of history have heard or read much about the history of the Assyrian and Persian Empires. However, few have been taught that the Scythians fought three major wars against Assyria and Persia and won them all.

Remember, Ephraim was going to be a warring tribe until the very end. It still is if you know who Ephraim is. Manasseh is not too far behind. In approximately 624 B.C., the Scythians launched a massive invasion of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Media, etc. They marched through the 50

Holy Land and reached Egypt, but spared the Egyptians who paid tribute money to the Scythians.

“The Scythians – So are you telling me the lost tribes came back down again?” Keep listening. The Assyrian Empire, however, was “inundated” and conquered by Scythian armies.

There is still debate why the Assyrian Empire kind of dwindled away to allow the Babylonian Empire to increase and gain control and power in the area. I’ve told you why. The Scythians had a role in it. As the descendants of the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel who were driven from their homeland by Assyrian armies, the Scythians (I.e. the “Sacae” who bore the name of “Isaac” upon them) had every reason to want revenge upon Assyria. The Scythians were allied to the Babylonians in this war...

“Wow, I can’t believe they would do that.” We still do it today; allying ourselves with people we shouldn’t be. What’s new. ... although the main burden of the war apparently was borne by the Scythians, whose massive armies [as the sand of the sea; they had massive armies] invaded and occupied the entire Middle East.[for a short period] The Encyclopaedia Britannica states simply; “Nineveh was captured and destroyed by the Scythian army.”

The Scythians did not stay very long in their conquered regions. Historical sources record they stayed 10-25 years and then returned to their homelands to live [north; not in the land of Israel, but north]. It is noteworthy that although they destroyed Assyria with great violence, Herodotus wrote that the Scythians marched through the Holy Land on their way to and from Egypt “doing no harm to anyone [in the Holy Land].”

Why? Indeed, the city of Beth-Shan in the Holy Land was renamed Scythopolis apparently in their honor, but certainly in their memory. It is at this juncture when they had entered the Holy Land in large numbers and marched as far as Egypt that the Scythians resurfaced in the Bible’s accounts. However, the Bible refers to them by their historic, Israelite tribal names instead of the Greek name of “Sacae” or “Scythians.”

Why is this not taught in Bible schools, seminaries, or even in churches? It just solidifies what I just showed you in the dating discrepancies if you put it in chronological order. There is a portion of the Bible that critics have attacked as “proving” that the Bible has internal contradictions. In fact, this very section offers 51

profound evidence that the Bible is historically accurate. The supposed contradiction comes from the fact that while II Kings 17:18 states that all the tribe of Israel were removed from the Promised Land except for the tribe of Judah circa 721 B.C., the Bible also states that people from the expelled tribes were again present in the land approximately a century later in the reign of King Josiah of the kingdom of Judah. King Josiah led a revival in the kingdom of Judah, restoring the observance of God’s laws. II Chronicles 34:6-9 records that in Josiah’s reign, there were again present in the Promised Land people from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Simeon, Naphtali and Benjamin. II Chronicles 35:17-18 clearly states that “children of Judah and Israel (I.e. the ten tribes of Israel) were both “present” at a Passover which was sponsored by King Josiah.

If this is true, how do we reconcile all this dating? It’s simple. It was the Sacae, the ones that were still around, the ones that Daniel mentions in His prayer that were still around, that would come back – but not to stay. Herodotus and secular history record unequivocally that the “Scythians” (the “Sacae”) invaded Mesopotamia and the Mideast from their homelands in the Black Sea region circa 620 B.C. They also record the Scythians entered the Holy Land at that time and stayed for 10-25 years. This Scythian presence in the Holy Land occurred during the reign of King Josiah of the kingdom of Judah, whose Passover celebration was attended by members of the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, Naphtali, Simeon, etc. who were again “present” in the territory of the former kingdom of Israel. The connection is obvious.

But God said they would not be His people and they would disperse, and their numbers would become so numerous, you can’t even measure them—but it wouldn’t happen in that tiny little space about the size of New Jersey in the United States of America. In fact, its size is even less than that because I’m also counting the southern tribes in that measurement. It is a little bigger than the state of Rhode Island maybe. The very people called the Scythians or Sacae by Herodotus were the same people called by their Israelite tribal names in the Bible! Far from demonstrating a biblical contradiction, the combined accounts of Herodotus and II Chronicles clearly demonstrate that the Scythian Sacae were the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel because the Bible calls these Scythians by their Hebrew tribal names! The Scythian/Israelites did not remain long in their historic tribal lands in the Holy Land, and they migrated back to the Black Sea region perhaps [less than] two decades later.

The history of the Scythians is as remarkable as it is overlooked in history texts. They were a major world power in ancient times, yet they are scarcely mentioned in historical accounts. Besides crushing the Assyrian Empire, the Scythians also twice defeated massive invasions of their homelands by the Persian Empire. The first Persian invasion occurred circa 528 BC 52

when the famous Persian monarch, Cyrus the Great, invaded the eastern Scythian tribes who lived east of the Caspian Sea. The dominant Scythian tribe to be invaded was the Massagetae, whose ruler was the aforementioned Queen Tomyris (whose name was a form of the Israelite name “Tamar”). The Persian army was crushed and Cyrus the Great lost both his army and his head.

The second Persian invasion of Scythian territory occurred in 512 BC when King Darius marched an army of 700,000 soldiers [that is a lot of soldiers] into Balkan Europe [eastern Europe] and attacked the Black Sea Scythians by marching into their territory via Eastern Europe.

He did a round-about. Cyrus the Great decided to attack the Scythians on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea. He lost his head. And another massive army came roundabout and through Turkey and the Grecian area, up and around, and tried a sneak attack from the backside of the Scythian Empire. It didn’t work. The sneak attack via eastern Europe failed. King Darius was repulsed by the Scythians, but at least Darius and most of his army survived their retreat back to Persia.

There is convincing evidence that the Sacae Scythians were the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel which were relocated to Asia. The history of the Scythians, who inhabited and ruled a territory much larger than many other empires, is an important, but oddly missing, element of world history. The important role of the Scythians in world history has been all but omitted from history text books. Could it be that the Scythians are largely ignored in modern history texts because if their history and culture was examined in any meaningful detail, their Israelite origins would become evident?

And it was not yet time for that to happen yet folks. Modern secular mankind is much more comfortable with a worldview which allows it to think that there is no Creator God who not only made them but also will hold them accountable for their actions in this life.

He won’t hold them accountable if they faithe and trust in Jesus Christ, first and foremost, because if they do not, everything else really doesn’t matter. The theory of evolution is so pervasive in modern academic and educational systems that most people assume their anti-biblical world view has been proven to be true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheistic and evolutionary writers adopt a biblically minimalist view of world history which assumes that the Bible is unscientific and that the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah were small, insignificant kingdoms on the eastern Mediterranean coast. 53

The truth is that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah both emerged from the break-up of the global Phoenician Empire which had previously also included the city-states of Tyre and Sidon. The two greatest kings of this global Phoenician Empire were the biblical Kings, David and Solomon. When the Israelite kingdom fell, many of its people were either taken into captivity or migrated to other parts of the far-flung Phoenician Empire to preserve their independence. This fact is attested to by the prophet Daniel.

Which we read; he referred to the ones who are near and a far off The greatest portion of the exiled people of the ten tribes of Israel migrated to the Black Sea region and became known as Scythians or Sacae.

In order to successful trace and locate the ten tribes of Israel in history, one must apply a maximalist approach to the Bible and world history. Such an approach takes the Bible literally as the inspired Word of a Creator God. A dispassionate examination of world history confirms the maximalist approach to the Bible is the correct one because biblical narratives do coincide with secular accounts. The Bible declares in Hosea 1:10 that the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel would not die out, but would rather grow in population to the point they could scarcely be numbered. Genesis 21:12 also prophesied that they would perpetually be known by the name of their progenitor, Isaac. Classical historians confirm that the Sacae Scythians were both incredibly numerous and bore the name of Isaac. An examination of their history and culture also confirms the presence of many Hebrew names and customs amongst the Scythian tribes. It is also noteworthy that the Scythians were divided into strong tribal units; they did not have a central Emperor ruling over all their many tribes. This is a typical trait of Israelite history, which often featured the individual tribes acting independent of each other.

The reality that the Scythians were the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel radically alters the standard paradigm via which world history is understood in the modern world. The modern view of world history ignores or downgrades the history and proper role of the many kingdoms and empires which have descended from the combined twelve tribes of Israel.

Once you understand who the Scythians were, why the Assyrian Empire crumbled, one of the beasts of the past which allowed another beast to eventually come and control, the Babylonian Empire, once you understand the major player to cause that to happen... We marvel how we’ll give certain people weapons that really want to do the present land of Israel harm and annihilate it from the map. Nothing has changed. History repeats itself. The Scythians, the northern tribes of Israel, did not even realize what they were doing in my opinion. But God has control of History, especially through three major battles or wars that took place with the Assyrian Empire. They were going to be the cause of the Assyrian Empire dying out, or fading away, and allowing the Babylonian Empire to come into history as the next beastly 54 empire that would have dominance over that area; that would take their fellow brethren the House of Judah into captivity, about 100 years after they went into captivity. What’s new? People are marveling and confused why the United States of America mingles in all these different countries, sometimes giving them military weapons, which they know is a good strong possibility they will use them against Israel...and it is not just a strong possibility. The northern tribes have been meddling in affairs and doing things they don’t realize the ramifications of for thousands of years. Nothing is new. History keeps repeating itself and it is repeating itself now. But no matter what nonsense you hear out there, God’s Word says the House of Judah and the House of Israel will come together no matter who is President, who is in Congress, etc., it does not matter. I feel like I am the only one out here, I really do, that is preaching this view. Tell me who else is doing it. Listen, I am not happy with a lot of things our present government is doing, especially the way it treats its ally Israel, but what is new? It is just history constantly repeating itself. Like I said, do you think the Scythians knew or foresaw that by defeating the Assyrian Empire to nothing, that they were causing the Babylonian Empire to take root and eventually take their fellow brethren into captivity? They had no clue, and we don’t have any clue these days it seems like. When push comes to shove, God will bring the two houses together. If you doubt that, stay tuned. My teaching is based on what God’s Word says. Let the critics say the chronological order doesn’t match up—it doesn’t match up because you don’t know your history. How many years have I been saying that? It’s a shame, a shame, that in our public education system, and even our private education system, even though there is time dedicated to history (I.e. United States History, World History), that more is not dedicated to it. But then again, they are skewing it anyway. They are rewriting it to fit their purposes of the day. But they are not rewriting the Bible, even though they are trying to, but they are not rewriting the Bible. You need eyes to see and ears to hear. Do you want the truth, or do you want the Christian science fiction approach that says of Gog and Magog that Russia is going to be the powerhouse behind it. Like I said, I wouldn’t doubt that Russia mingles in with all the happenings of the time, but it is not the final beast that will be dealt with. I will show you through the book of Ezekiel how it is going to be dealt with and connect it to the book of Revelation in the New Testament. When I am done, it will show you where we are at in our history timeline in a way I haven’t shown you before.

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide Still Near

1. What problem are we presented with from the information contained in II Chron. 34?

2. How is the seeming problem in II Chron. 34 resolved?

3. How did the kingdoms of Judah and Israel come into being from a secular perspective?

4. Specifically, who brought king Cyrus to an end?

5. Upon conquering an enemy, what would the Scythians do?

6. What was Beth-shan renamed?

7. Who paid tribute monies to the Scythians?

8. When king Josiah instituted revival in the land and Israelites were present for the passover feast, how long had it been since their exile?

9. What curious statement does Daniel make about the house of Israel?

10. How should the information in this teaching affect our current world view?

Gog Alliance

Open your bible to Ezekiel 38. Verse 1, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, [2] Son of man, set thy face against Gog...” An old Sumerian translation of ‘Gog’ means darkness. Though not quite the same as the Hebrew, nevertheless, it is close and could read, “Son of man, set thy face against darkness.” Those listed in Ezekiel 38:2, 5 & 6 represent darkness because they represent Islam. Islam is controlled by wicked unseen evil in the spiritual world that Daniel and other prophets saw, and which we now call today the final beast or the 8th Beast on the world stage, especially how it affects Israel in its totality (house of Judah & house of Israel). Gog, the land of Magog, is darkened with a spiritual darkness that will lead to an evil display of that darkness by its actions and understood from the human perspective, thereby revealing itself as total evil. “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” are the final stages of what the 8th Beast will unleash in the Middle East, which will affect the world. It will be a completion to the darkness of this beast that began 1400 years ago with the 7th Beast, but is now the 8th. God told Ezekiel to set his face against them, “And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:” They are the instigators. They are the leaders of this final invasion. It doesn’t really mention that it is a missile war. Though Israel faces small rockets now that can do plenty of damage and kill people, they are not facing what some of the more powerful missiles can do, that Gog of Magog has plenty of in supply right now. I think the Iron Dome has proven to be very effective against incoming rockets, and, with Israel’s Air Force, along with the United States at the end, they will be effective enough that nobody can have air superiority over that area and over the United States or Israel. So what is left? A ground invasion. That is the only thing left. If you really think about it, I have been saying this is not Russia. The world has been misled and misguided that it is Russia because most people have been saying that for the last 50-60 years now. People believe that because that is what they have been reading and taught behind the pulpit by preachers just taking what authors say for granted, authors that are more interested in selling books with misinformation than researching the truth. Do you really believe that if Russia wanted to do this kind of damage to Israel that it needs a ground invasion? Think about it, Israel has nukes but Russia has a heck of a lot more. Russia is the second most powerful military and has the most powerful military in place outside of the United States (of course the United States being the most powerful). I contend that Israel is the third most powerful presently. I know there is England and France and all that, I just think Israel is more battle ready. Now I think Israel will drop their guard after the Psalm 83 War, which is a war against the Arab confederacy that I believe will happen first before this Gog-Magog War. (For those of you looking for Jesus to come back real soon, like tomorrow, I got news for you, He’s not coming back tomorrow unless He’s coming back for you only or me only.) After the 58

Arab confederacy war, Israel will think it is protected enough and drop his guard. That will allow the opportunity shortly after for this last invasion to begin and all of this history to be concluded. Now Scripture goes on in verse 5 to read, “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” In the Gog-Magog War, I believe Persia will include the general area comprised of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, all the way to the border of India and maybe some of the ‘stans’. Ethiopia, which actually reads “Cush,” will be the general area of Iraq and Kuwait. I do not think it is the Ethiopia of today. Sudan is a better candidate than Ethiopia is presently. Libya (Put) describes a greater area than just Libya. It would be Libya plus Tunisia, Algeria, everyone along the southern Mediterranean Sea coast except Egypt. Verse 6, “Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” That was verse five, now let’s look at verses 2 and 6.

Above is a map of Turkey for the most part. Here we see Magog at about the center of the country, where Magog was located in ancient times. To the northeast of that would be the area for Gomer. Meshech, as you travel west—where by the way you find several churches from Revelation chapters 2 and 3 are located, more in the Meshech area. Then there is Tubal on the eastern edge of Turkey and Togarmah on their southeastern border of Turkey today. So now we have the five listed in verses 2 and 6 (Gomer, Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Togarmah) identified. So the players in Ezekiel 38 covered almost of all of Turkey (by those names that we looked at in verses two and six), includes the area for Persia all the way to the border of India, plus add in Cush’s territory and Libya’s. Now Gomer could include Armenia or Azerbaijan, but I don’t believe it will. If you have a map at home, kind of pencil it in. Those are the players. 59

“Why not Syria, why not Jordan, why not maybe the Northern part of Iraq, why not Saudi Arabia, why not Egypt?” Because they are not listed in this chapter, they are part of a different war, an Arab confederacy war. This Gog-Magog War, for the most part, is not Arab. So you have two wars. What about the Armageddon war? I don’t believe that is a third war. I know in the past I said it was a possibility because I didn’t want to get into it at that time. I know what most of you have been taught; or if you haven’t, there is a lot of speculation that there are going to be three wars. Some believe there will only be one final war, they do not believe in a Psalm 83 War or a Gog- Magog War that is separate from an Armageddon war. I will cover that in this Gog-Magog section, this Armageddon War. Is it the same war? We will take a look at that. Now that I have given you an outline of the players, I want to go beyond just identifying where these locations are on the map. I want to go back to what we’ve been debunking that was caused by using one line in the Josephus records that mistakenly classify the Scythians as Magogites. No they weren’t. The last few messages, I have gone over briefly who the Scythians were. There was a lot more I could have covered, but time does not allow me. The ten northern tribes were Scythians. The Scythians broke up into three different groups of Scyths and they were called the Sacae or Sakai. They were a force to be dealt with once they became kind of unified and strong again in the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and east of the Caspian Sea in some areas. Then a certain amount of tribes were released from Assyrian captivity. You can credit the Scythians for most of the Assyrian Empire crumbling from underneath its feet; the Assyrian Empire warring with the Scythians and they were losing battle after battle. And of course at the latter end of the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire started to gain power, and because of what the Scyths did, the Babylonian Empire came in and swept the Assyrians, kind of like a clean-up of what the Scythians didn’t crumble; the Babylonians came along and cleaned up what was left over. The Babylonian Empire took advantage of what the Scythians did for decades once they gained their footing again, and once they established themselves in a part of the world that was not called Israel. As I mentioned before, some were taken into captivity and they settled in their captive state in the areas below the Caspian sea in Persia. Others before they were taken captive ran for their lives and settled in the areas between and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus Mountains area of that part of the world that we now call southern Russia or Georgia or Armenia and so forth. But they gained their foothold and became a force to be dealt with, and the Assyrians felt the heat and they kept losing battle after battle for several decades. In fact, the Sacae made their presence known all the way to Egypt except they did not use force when passing through or staying for a while back in their own homeland—which they didn’t call their own homeland anymore because they were already established in another area of the world, to the north as Scripture defines it (and as we’ve already reviewed) and became a different people because Hosea says they became known as “not my people”, not God’s people any longer. Now they would be named something different to become sons of the living God centuries later, but that would take a while and they would expand and leave this area and go west. They went all the way to the British Isles and the western parts of Europe and eventually became the melting pot of what we call the United States of America, which I believe is the Ephraim of our day. 60

But now let’s go back to where I left off when I was reading through some of the material before I took off on the Scythians. It is perplexing that even as some bible dictionaries reflect changes in their identification of the ancient nations of Ezekiel 38-39 based on these Assyrian records, many Bible prophecy books still persist in the incorrect theory that Russia is Magog. In many Bible prophecy books the erroneous theory that Magog and the Scythians are the founders of modern Russia is simply taken for granted, and no references for these connections are given at all. Even more disconcerting are statements made with no connection to reality.

Now as I share this information some of these people that I’ll mention here I believe are sincere and they took the word of some of the authors and preachers that put forth this false information without doing their own research. They rely too heavily on the material they got it from as being accurate without doing the research. That is unfortunate because I think some of these people have good hearts, they mean well, but they are misinformed, that leads other people to being misinformed, which causes a problem of not knowing what the truth really is. Thomas McCall and Zola Levitt in The Coming Russian Invasion of Israel write, “secular history books trace the fierce Scythian people...as forerunners of modern Russia.”

They are just taking what they read and preaching it or rewriting it for their own materials and books that they produce without doing the research. Anybody that does any research on this subject has to see the truth, you’d think. They can’t ignore it. But maybe they won’t come to the truth that those Scythians were the ten northern tribes of Israel (that they were taken in captivity or ran for it before their captivity), maybe they can’t see that far into what I’ve presented to you, but they can surely see that there is too much scholarship that says the Scythians were not Russians. How can they ignore that? My guess is they never looked into it and took someone else’s word for it. Hal Lindsey in The Late Great Planet Earth writes, “Any good history book of ancient times traces the Scythians to be a principle part of the people who make up modern Russia.” Few within the Christian community seem to be aware of the black eye this kind of “research and analysis” has produced in the secular academic world. Historian Paul Boyer of the University of Wisconsin writes, “So hackneyed had this scenario (Magog and Scythia as Russia) become by the 1980’s that it proponents hardly bothered with the geographic and linguistic evidence marshaled by earlier writers.”

In The Final Curtain Pastor and author Chuck Smith handles the lack of accepted evidence for Magog and the Scythians connecting to modern Russia in another way. He moves Magog from Asia Minor to Southern Russia. Without giving any references, Chuck Smith writes, “Magog throughout history, has been known as the vast area north of the Caucasus 61

Mountains. Today, it is known as Russia.” This is simply not true; historians and archeologists have never placed Magog north of the Caucasus Mountains. Again, there are no modern history books, research papers or studies which connect either Magog or the Scythians with the modern day Russians.

Ironically, the correct answer to the origins of modern Russia was available as early as the 1800’s. As mentioned, John Cummings, a Doctor of Divinity, was one of the 19th century proponents of the Russian invasion of Israel interpretation of Ezekiel 38-39. Cummings was the author of The Destiny of Nations – As Indicated in Bible Prophecy published in 1864, a book Hal Lindsey in the Late Great Planet Earth quoted from a number of times. While Cummings quotes and agrees with Bishop Lowth (1710) who said that the modern Russians were derived from the Scythians, and Reverend Hollis Reade who said the modern Russians have their origins in Magog and the Scythians, he also presents another view. Cummings wrote, “Gibbon (Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776) however, thinks the name (‘Russia’) is of Scandinavian origin, and describes the Ruses derived from Ruts, the Finnish name of Sweden.” Gibbon gives the very same origin of the name and people of modern Russia, the Viking tribe from Sweden, the Scandinavian Ruses (Rus), that archeologists and historians know to be true today. So, unbeknownst to Cummings [back in 1864], his book actually gives the truth about modern Russian origins.

As stated earlier, over the last couple of decades various Bible Dictionaries no longer associate Gog and Magog with Russia. Dr. Merril F. Unger, who wrote the preface to the first edition of The Coming Russian Invasion of Israel published in 1974 and lent his name to The Unger Bible Dictionary published in 1960, had believed the discussion of Gog and Magog identified a Russian led invasion of Israel during the end times. However, The New Unger Bible Dictionary published in 1988 (edited by R.K. Harrison) no longer associates Gog and Magog with Russia. Instead it correctly associates Gog and Magog with the ancient western Asia Minor nation of Lydia.

By the way, the Lydians are what we call today the people of Turkey. The New Unger Bible Dictionary says, “Gog is described by the prophet (Ezekiel) as belonging to the land of Magog, the situation of which is defined by its proximity to the isles of the Aegean. It is clear that Lydia is meant and that by Magog we must understand the land of God.” The capital Lydia was Sardis.

The New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition published in 1982 says, “The only reasonable identification of Gog is with Gyges, the King of Lydia (c. 660 B.C.) – Assyrian Gugu; Magog could be Assyrian ma(t)gugu, “land of 62

Gog.” Harper’s Bible Dictionary published in 1985 also identifies Gog with the historical Gyges of Lydia, and identifies “Magog” as a phrase in the Assyrian language which means ‘land of Gog.’”

A closer look at Gog and the nation of Lydia, as referred to in other places in the Bible, makes it quite clear that Ezekiel 38-39 referred to the historical king called Gog and the land of Gog [Magog], that is, the ancient nation also known as Lydia [which today is Turkey]. Encyclopedia Judaica also identifies Gog with Gyges, the historical King of Lydia, and Magog, his country, with Lydia when it says: “Since in the list of the sons of Noah (Gen. 10:2), Magog is mentioned, the most reasonable identification put forward is with Gyges, also known as Gugu, King of Lydia; and Magog, was his country.”

Archeologists know that within the Assyrian cuneiform records which have been translated, there are references to all of the ancient nations listed in Ezekiel 38-39. Bible scholars now use these same Assyrian texts and related Babylonian texts to provide independent verification and edification of the Bible’s historical accounts from about 805 BC to 530 BC. For example, the Bible (Ezra 4:15, 19 and 5:17-6:7) tells how the Jews of the fifth century BC (538 BC- 457 BC) overcame opposition by the local Persian governor to the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem by referring to these same Assyrian cuneiform court records. These Assyrian records show that Magog, Meshech, Tubal, and Togarmah (Ezekiel 38:5) were all nations of ancient Asia Minor that dealt with the Assyrian court. They stretched across Asia Minor. Gomer (Ezekiel 38:5 – Gimmiraia = Cimmerians) actually invaded Asia Minor by coming down from an area around the northeast shore of the Black Sea.

These nations all co-existed in Asia Minor (Modern Turkey)at a time when Magog (also known as Ludu or Lydia in both the Bible and the Assyrian texts) was led by a militant leader called Gog (685-652 BC), about 100 years before Ezekiel wrote. Gog is the Hebrew spelling of the name of a militant leader from western Asia Minor known as Gyges of Lydia to the Greeks. This same leader and country was known as Gugu of Ludu to the Assyrians. The Assyrians made great use of eponyms (I.e. words or names derived from the name of a person) and even published eponym lists. In the Assyrian language “the land of Gugu” is rendered as Ma-gugu, just as “the land of Zamua” is rendered as Ma-zamua. The Hebrew spelling of Magugu is “Magog,” and thus “Magog” simply means “the land of Gog”.

The ruler referred to in this “land of” eponym format was usually the very first ruler from this land to become known to the Assyrian court. Assyrian court records indeed show that Gyges of Lydia (Gugu of Ludu) was the first ruler from Lydia they ever met, since all dealings with western Asia Minor up to then were mediated by Meshech in central Asia Minor. However, 63

after Meshech fell to Gomer, during the reign of Gyges, direct contact between Lydia and Assyria began, and Gyges became the first Lydian ruler known to the Assyrian Court. Hence, Lydia would have also been known as the “land of Gyges” and from this we get Ma-gog.

And by 540 BC Lydia was incorporated into the Persian Empire. When Ezekiel 38:2 refers to Gog from the land of Magog, as the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, the Scripture is referring to a specific geographic area – Asia Minor – and to a specific time period and ruler – when Magog, Meshech, and Tubal were all coexistent. The Assyrian records do speak of such a time period and person, and we now know that this Gog, the King of Lydia (Gugu of Ludu = Gyges of Lydia), led the defensive efforts of Magog (Lydia), Meshech, and Tubal against invading Gomer (the Cimmericans). This was a very narrow time period because Meshech fell to Gomer (the Cimmerican) and was taken over during the reign of Gog.

From these same cuneiform records, a corroborating inscription found in Magog (Lydia), and from accounts by ancient historian, we also know that this King Gog sent troops to Egypt to serve as mercenaries sometime after 644 BC. He helped Psammetichus I (the son of Necho I of II Chronicles 35:20) suppress native rivals, and secure his kingship over all of Egypt. The fact that Gog sent troops to help Psammetichus and serve as his personal bodyguard explains the seeming incongruity of a nation of Asia Minor being counted among the north African nations of Ethiopia and Libya as allies of the Egyptians. It also explains why Magog (Lydia) is named in prophecies about the fall of Egypt during the [possible] end times.

Now that is a whole subject matter which I’m not going to incorporate in this teaching now because I have a different opinion on that, but I will continue with this source. Magog or Lydia is counted among those “in league” with and who “uphold Egypt” in Ezekiel 30:4-6 and in Jeremiah 46:8-10.

Now you don’t need to remember all this history. You just need to remember who Ezekiel (“the son of man”) is referring to, being given instruction by God to set his face against these areas, these people that I am reading about and who they are today. That is what you have to remember. In Ezekiel 38-39 we once again see Lydia (Magog), Ethiopia, and Libya as allies (Ezekiel 38:5). It is the Lydian army’s expertise with the bow (Jeremiah 46:9-10 and possibly Lud in Isaiah 66:19) that is addressed in Ezekiel 39:3, when it says, “I will smite the bow out of thy left hand, and cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.” Magog’s or Lydia’s alliance with Egypt and use of the bow are among the added verifiable insights of the Bible that emerge when knowledge from archeology and history is used as an aid in the interpretation of the Bible. Again, the 64

archeological record shows that Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Togarmah all ended long before population centers began to develop in Russia. Thus, archeologists know that none of the nations referred to Ezekiel 38-39 had anything to do with the origins of modern Russia.

So why do they still produce these books. Every year more come out that have this Gog-Magog War and define the people of the land of Gog to be Russian. And why do they keep preaching sermons – especially when things heat up in the Middle East and they try to figure out what is going to happen next. And again especially because what happened this last week in southeastern Ukraine and stating they don’t know how anybody can deny Russia’s involvement. All one reads or hears is how Russia is pushing its involvement and forming its last days desires to push against Israel. Listen, many of these nations are probably going to line up on the wrong side, but the Russians are not Gog of Magog. They are not part of that ancient Lydian empire. They are not listed in Ezekiel 38:2, 5, or 6. It is the chief prince of Gog from Magog in these scriptures leading Meshech, Tubal, and Gomer. If you really wanted to read this the way it is written it says, “it is the chief prince of darkness from the land of darkness leading men that cause terror in the land of the living... and creatures from hell”. “Well where do you find that in Scripture?” Go to Ezekiel 32:26. This chapter pretty much gives you a list, and then there is who is going to wind up in the grave and at the sides of the pit. It lists Elam, Edom, Egypt, and so forth, but you get to verse 26 and it reads, “There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living. In the land of the living, as I said, the chief prince of Gog from Magog leading Meshech and Tubal and Gomer; the chief prince of darkness from the land of darkness leading men, causing their terror in the land of the living. And creatures from hell... because that is what this chapter is describing, creatures from hell are going to wind up there. By the way the Assyrians use to call the Gomerites ‘creatures from hell’. Now you’ll find Gog and Magog also referred to in the book of Revelation 20:8. There is a lot of controversy of what this thousand years truly means in Scripture (If it is a thousand years, when does it happen), but there is also mention in verse 8 they “shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”I will get to this chapter eventually. But they are listed not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament. This message’s main focus is just trying to place on the map where some of the names were located not only in ancient times, but where they are located today in our time from verses 2, 5 and 6. You don’t have to remember the dates, you don’t have to remember some of the history that I present to you. All you have to remember is there is enough historical evidence through Assyrian and Babylonian records—but mostly Assyrian records because all of the financial transactions (which I haven’t got into it)—to prove where these nations are located on a modern map and who Ezekiel had to set his face against. 65

The rest of this chapter deals with what is going to come and what these nations are going to face. They think they are coming against flesh and blood. It is a lot bigger than that. It is a seen but unseen war that is going to take place. God is going to have the last word and His Word has been proven to be faithful up to this point, so why should we doubt or have second thoughts that He will not complete the job. He will. Now, I will move on and maybe I will fill in some more gaps as I go in the history part, but I have given enough for you to follow on your own if you desire to pursue it, to research out who the Scythians are, who these players in verses 2, 5 and 6 were and are today. You can look at the ancient historical facts, and historical records and place these names to geographic areas of their time and our time today. And how ironic, with all the beasts that we find in Scripture, it is usually all the same area. What comes around goes around (how true) with these beasts that we find in Scripture. Well, all the other beasts have come and gone, and this final beast will be dealt with God’s way in His timeline. But it is important when these wars do take place that you are aware of who is going to be a part of it. And if we are still here, if I am still living, it will not be a surprise, I am not going to be shocked about the events of that day because we already looked into God’s Word and saw it coming, and we are not basing it on some Christian science fiction theories and doctrines that were started about 200 years ago and just got worse along the way. They didn’t improve even though some scholars changed their mindset and reflect that in their work, and don’t identify Russia with Gog and the land of Magog, or the other names listed in verse 2, 5 and 6. They don’t identify with it any longer. So why do popular authors and preachers keep teaching that false identification regarding last days events? I know why they continue; because they will not seem credible any longer in the peoples’ mindset, and their viewpoints and perception will change about these preacher and authors, and then, they can’t sell them any more books. Some of these congregations would probably kick them out because of how they misled them. It would be life changing to start preaching the truth in the here and now, but better to have your life change now than to answer to Him and have to explain why after you knew better, you kept on preaching it for king dollar (for the most part). That is between them and their Maker. I’m going to stay focused and stay preaching on what the rightly divided Word of God has declared. If you are not convinced that the people that I have placed on the map, the nations that will be involved in it, is accurate, do your own research. I think it was two days ago I googled images for the Gog and Magog War to see how many different images would come up. To my surprise, a whole bunch of maps came up. There has to be dozens and dozens of view points, which after I looked at some of them, I said, How can they verify that with God’s Word? It is guesswork. It is Christian Science Fiction. That is all it is. See for yourself. Google it and select images and see for yourself how many different things pop up – mostly maps of where Ezekiel 38 is and the geographic areas that they have decided that Gog the land of Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer and Togarmah, and all his bands are. They have them coming from every direction. Talk about confusion. That is why I am throwing a little bit of history at you, but not a lot of it—because most don’t get into the history, some do but most don’t. I just want to give you enough information to at least look it up for yourself if you are that interested, because if you find it yourself knowing what you heard here, you won’t be confused with all the other nonsense. All the other nonsense cannot take God’s Word without twisting it to be something else to fit their doctrine or viewpoint of where these names are located on a map. If you have been following this ministry for some time, I think you know that I do my homework and anything that does not verify with the Word of God I toss out and keep what does. And when secular history not only 66 can identify but verify with the Word of God, that is icing on the cake and that is what I look for. I don’t need to be brainwashed or my arm twisted to believe certain things I do in Scripture, but when I find secular history that proves it out, I have a response for even the secularists who say, “Well you know what, that Bible is a bunch of nonsense,” and that is, “Then why does it match up with you secular history? Explain that to me.” Usually they don’t have an answer. Secular history is just proving God’s Word, and we get to show it off – how truthful, how divinely inspired it is, and why we can trust and rely on it. Thank God we are living in a day where we have the Bible as our source and we live in the latter times when there is not that much left to fulfill. But there is still some yet to fulfill. For those looking for Jesus to return tomorrow... Now you might be reading this at some future time, and it might be tomorrow, but if it is July 23, 2013, he’s not coming back tomorrow, unless he’s coming back just for you. There is too much unfulfilled prophecy that still yet needs to be fulfilled and this is one of them. “Well, I’m pre-trib, I approve it.” Then prove your pre-trib or mid-trib theories without twisting God’s Word and without adding anything to it to prove your viewpoint, but just taking what is in there already and not adopting some 150-200 year old theories about who the two witness are, who the beast is, who is the false prophet and so forth. If you want some creative writing done, you don’t need to look much further than Christian authors. They’re really good at it, some of the world’s best. But we don’t want creative writing, we are seeking the truth and in this teaching if all you get is where these names are located on a map, then I have accomplish what I have set out to do. And for those of you who are more interested in researching for yourself, to prove further what I started, by all means do it. You’ll come to the same conclusions that I have. I am convinced of it.

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide Gog Alliance

1. On the map provided on page 66, designate the territories covered by the Ezekiel 38-39 8th Beast and include what faction of the Gog-Magog alliance they are associated with.

2. What is the Sumerian translation of Gog?

3. What type of war will the Gog-Magog War primarily be?

4. What method did Chuck Smith use to make up for the lack of evidence that Gog was Russia?

5. Which book and author states that the Russians are of Scandinavian origin?

6. Who’s historical records lists all the nations in Ezekiel 38-39?

7. When did Gog reign in Asia Minor?

8. What are eponyms?

9. When was Lydia incorporated into the Persian empire?

10. How did the term Magog come into being?

11. How do archeologists know Gog of Magog and those listed have nothing to do with Russia?

12. What did the Assyrians call the Gomerites?

I Will Sixth Thee

Open your bible to Ezekiel 38:1-6. “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him.” Set your face against that land of darkness, as I said last time, “And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” I am not going to review some of the history previously presented to you but I want to briefly reiterate that Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Togarmah are in Turkey. Togarmah and Gomer are toward the eastern end of the country and from the center to the west we find the others within the land of Magog. Libya would consist of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. Persia would be considered Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan (up to about where the border of India begins) and maybe some of the ‘stans’ also, what use to be considered the Soviet Union. It also says Ethiopia, or Cush. I believe that to probably be the southern areas of Iraq. It could be Sudan also but I believe Iraq is at least part of it and will be involved in it because, for instance, the Sunni (ISIS) are taking over the northern Iraqi areas (except for the Kurdish area). So if in the Psalm 83 War Israel pushes as far as northern Iraq, I am not going to be surprised, and that would divide Iraq almost in half.

Psalm 83 / Ezekiel Participants Comparison Chart

Verse 7-9, “Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm [the Hebrew word is like rushing in with devastation as the purpose], thou shalt be like a cloud [or a great army] to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.” I am going to come back, God willing, to verse 8, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years [the end times, as we understand now, the days we are living in] thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword...” I will come back to what that means at a later time. Verse 10, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: [11] And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages;” If you look at Israel now, they have walls separating them from the West Bank for instance. If they ever conclude building that wall with all the twists and turns it is going to take, even though Israel is not that large (somewhere around 70-80 miles in length from north to south), the wall or the walls they have planned to build to protect them from the Palestinians both west and east of them would run about 250 miles. But after that Arab confederacy war against Israel, Israel’s territory will expand out, which will cause most of the population that lives in present day Israel to feel somewhat secure because their enemies are defeated and many of the ones still living will have been displaced. So there is going to be a situation where Israel is probably going to knock down their walls, their defense systems, where they would not be so much on the defensive constantly because there won’t be rockets falling in on them from nearby nations. Oh, they will still have problems because there is a portion of The Beast that still exists after the Psalm 83 War, but the immediate problem resolved by the Psalm 83 War will cause them to let down their guard somewhat and they will have unwalled villages. “I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely[confidently], all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates”. In these latter years like verse eight mentioned, Israel has never had that since 1948. So that is still yet to come. As verse 11 transitions to verse 12, there is a little shift. We’ll start at 11 again, “And thou shalt say [the Gog-Magog confederacy], I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, [12] To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” The focus kind of shifts from destroying Israel in the name of allah, though that is probably still going to be part of their intentions, but something happens. This Magog-Gog confederacy comes up with some mischievous plan to go and try to conquer and defeat Israel because they are attracted by the spoil. More than likely the Psalm 83 War will expand into areas that might be oil producing areas or whatever Israel produces. So there is an economic reason why this Gog- Magog attacks. 72

Remember, off the coast of Israel there is plenty of natural gas and other resources in the Leviathan Basin and other areas that Turkey and Cypress will contend are theirs. They are already starting to complain about it now and saying that it is theirs. That is a fight that is going to come folks. Part of the reason is this Gog-Magog War happens is because of spoil. Verse 12, “To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” Verse 13 is kind of ironic, “Sheba, and Dedan [that is down in the Saudi Arabia/Yemen areas], and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil?” The merchants of Tarshish expand out all the way to the Iberian Peninsula and to Britain today. The Iberian Peninsula consists of Spain and Portugal areas, and around the Straits of Gibraltar up to Britain. So these areas are questioning, “Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” So it is not just about allah and winning victory for him (even though that will be involved and is still the driving force), there is more to it now, an economic reason why. Verse 14, “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?” Israel has not dwelt safely since 1948 but they will. “And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts”— that is why everyone that preaches Christian science fiction theories thinks this is Russia; it never said Russia—“thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.” God is pulling the strings here, folks. He is setting all this up. Verse 17, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them? [I’ll come back to this in future teachings, God willing.] And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face.” This is talking about one pissed off God at this point, His Wrath: He is fuming mad. Verse19, “For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.” This sounds like some kind of massive earthquake around the areas where Gog and Magog attempts to conquer. “And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother.” This war almost reminds me of Gideon. The enemy was so confused in the valley because of the way God planned Gideon to line up with the 300 on top of the valley at night, and once they broke the lamp and they could see the burning flame coming from the lamp, and they are all shouting, I’m sure that valley seemed like an echo coming from every different direction that the 73 enemy got confused and they started killing each other. Something of that nature is going to happen. “...every man's sword shall be against his brother, And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.” I want you to note the following: And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 1) pestilence 2) blood 3) overflowing rain 4) great hailstones 5) fire 6) blood

I just want you to remember that for now.

“Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.” Now let’s move on to the 39th chapter. Ezekiel 39:1, “Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:” If you check all the translations that are out there for the last several hundred years (and it goes as far back as Wycliffe), the newer translations translated verse two, “And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts and will bring these upon the mountains of Israel,” all different ways. Of course the ones that still accept this translation in verse two believe that Russia will be left about a 1/6th part of its nation, those that don’t come to this Gog-Magog War. That is the accepted Christian science fiction doctrine, the main one, but there are several. Now many translations don’t even translate it that way any longer. Circle the words ‘leave but the sixth part’ in verse two. That is not a proper translation either. In fact in the majority of the Hebrew text you won’t find the words ‘but’ ‘the’ ‘leave’ or ‘part’. So ‘but’ ‘the’ ‘leave’ and ‘part’ do not appear. If you looked up the words concerning this verse for instance in a Strong’s Concordance, you will not find any of the numbers that refer you to the Hebrew. And of course, I have a copy of what it says at the front of the Strong’s Concordance. It says “If no number appears, the word may have been supplied by the translators to clarify the meaning,” or to confuse it. I believe God left it confused for a reason. It was not time yet to understand completely what is being referred to in this verse. “If no number appears, the word may have 74 been supplied by the translators to clarify the meaning, even though no specific Hebrew or Greek word was used to express it.” That is from Strong’s Concordance. So what are the words being used there? .in the Hebrew; shaw-shaw, that is how you would pronounce it (שָׁשָׁ א) Shasha The Hebrew words for both ‘leave’ and ‘sixth’ in that verse are very similar and come from the same root word in the Hebrew. One means to lead to annihilate it or completely exterminate something. This is important because you will never understand how to connect this to other areas of God’s Word and back even in Ezekiel, a few verses before that, until you get the right translation down. “I will turn thee back and annihilate / completely exterminate thee.” But something else needs to be added because you still have that ‘sixth’ in there. So let me add in now what should be there also. “I will turn thee back and completely exterminate sixth.” Now some old translators translated this “I will sixth thee” instead of the translation I am giving you here—which I don’t have a problem with either, because they mean the same thing once you understand what that sixth thing means. Now the Christian science fiction people don’t want to make the connections that I make because it disrupts their doctrines about antichrist and pre-trib and mid-trib and so forth, and then they don’t know where to place this – especially when we bring in the Armageddon situation. I will turn thee back, annihilate you, exterminate you, and (really) sixth you. If you want to get down to brass tacks, God is going to completely exterminate and sixth them. “How is He going to sixth them?” If you go back, you will understand why I told you to circle these words, keep it in context folks. Verse 22, what happens? “I will plead against him [1] with pestilence and [2] with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an [3] overflowing rain, and [4] great hailstones, [5] fire, and [6] brimstone.” I will sixth thee. How is He going to completely exterminate them? Verse 22 tells you the details exactly; maybe not all the details but the general information that we know, because God is going to interfere in this war. He is going to step in. In the Psalm 83 War, Israel and his partners will take care of the Arab confederacy. God is not physically appearing to take care of that problem. But when we come down to this next war, this Gog-Magog War (I am not going to say it is the last war yet), God jumps into the fold. How does He do it? With pestilence, with blood, overflowing rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. “I will turn thee back and completely exterminate, sixth thee.” That is what I want you to remember about how it reads if you were reading the Hebrew word- for-word. Now, that is what God is going to do. And it goes on to say, “And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. Thou shalt fall upon the open field: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. And I will send a fire on 75

Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly [confidently] in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD. So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.” And it goes into other details I am not ready to go into yet. But we will come back to this chapter and the previous chapter at another time. The point I want to make is I told you where these players were going to be coming from, what nations comprise this Gog-Magog War. Now I am telling you how they are going to be dealt with by God. He is going to sixth them. I don’t want anybody to think I’ve ever been 86’d out of a bar, I just know people that have been 86’d out of a bar (it might be called 86, it might be called something different now), but when you drink too much and become a problem, what do they do to you at a bar? They 86 you: they completely throw you out. Well God is going to sixth them. He’s not only going to throw them out, He is going to destroy them and He tells us how He is going to do it—but not only here. Where else? In the New Testament. “Where else in the New Testament?”

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide I Will Sixth Thee

1. What does Ezekiel 38:12 reveal as the motive for the Gog-Magog War?

2. How should Ezekiel 39:2 be translated and why?

3. How is God going to sixth the Gog-Magog confederacy?

4. Who do the merchants of Tarshish represent?

5. List the Gog-Magog confederated countries.

The Rise of Turkey

Open your bible to Ezekiel 38:1. I know I left us off at Ezekiel 39:2 and I am going to go back to that, but I decided to do something else first because I am not convinced everyone understands who we are dealing with yet. Verse 1, “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, [2] Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him...” Then of course we read down in verse 5, “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: [6] Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” All five of the names listed here (vss. 2, 6), as I said, are in modern Turkey as we know it today. I also pointed out to you the rest of the other nations that join in. The fact that Turkey is so heavily emphasized is something that shouldn’t be ignored. God must have highlighted these areas for a reason. I don’t think it is by accident it is during the last days. In verse 8 it says, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword...” But, I want to stop for a few moments. See Turkey is not mentioned much, only occasionally here and there. Everyone is ignoring Turkey. Right now everybody is concentrated on what is happening with ISIS in the Middle East, or Iran’s nuclear program (which we still have to get to), or Israel and Hamas right now. I’d hate to minimize this or downgrade it in anyway, but it is just a bump in the road for what is coming. And I don’t want to seem like I am minimizing it because lives are being lost and it is a tragedy, but in wars there has always been winners and losers. I’d rather be on God’s side, and, it is clearly shown in God’s Word what side you should be on than not. But in verse 4 it says, “I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.” Highlight “I will turn thee back” and then move over to chapter 39:2, where it mentions it again using the same Hebrew words, “And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.” So highlight “I will turn thee back” in that verse. Do you know what it says in the Hebrew? If you have followed this series, do you remember that there has been beastly kingdom empires (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th) and now we have the 8th? And of course all seven of the previous empires controlled Israel and Jerusalem at one time. Now we are in the 8th, but all seven controlled Israel. So when you read these verses or hear these messages, you have to keep that in remembrance. We are talking about beastly empires that have trampled on Israel and its capital Jerusalem in the past (not the USA, not China, Japan or Russia, not South Africa or Australia) but that little tiny country about the size of New Jersey here in the states. So in talking about this last beastly kingdom, it is not talking and warning about and having Ezekiel set his face against Gog the land of Magog because it has an issue with Canada or Australia. No, it has an issue with 79

Israel. It has an issue in its totality with the whole house of Israel, not just that little tiny country, but that little tiny country does hold the capital Jerusalem, the city of God. So the bottom line is that is going to be the main focus. But in totality, it goes beyond that and I’ve mentioned that many times before. So that is the focus when you read these verses, not somewhere else in the large world, but that area alone. And this is what the eschatologists don’t seem to get a grasp on. My conclusion is they don’t know any part of history; they don’t study the empire kingdoms of this world that have trampled on and put under bondage Israel in the Middle East. So “I will turn thee back” in Ezekiel 38:4 and also in Ezekiel 39:2 is shuwb in the Hebrew (pronounced shoob). What does shuwb mean? It means: I will draw you back again; I will cause you to return. Either translation is fine. The Hebrew makes it very clear that it is a back and forth motion that is taking place here. In fact, the King James was not that far off with “I will turn thee back”. It just missed the ‘again’ part, that back and forth motion—meaning that wherever this area is, it has been there before (and I told you what it was). So that is when you have to get your history brain out and start thinking. When has the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, which Ezekiel prophesied against, been there before in our past? Not in Ezekiel’s past, Ezekiel is looking to the future of things not yet happened that God is telling him to write down. Now we live in a time when this has already happened, these principle players in the Turkish area have been in control in the past and put that country Israel in the Middle East under its control and trampled over Jerusalem. So the question is to all the eschatology experts out there: When has Russia done that (since they are so adamant about Russia being the main player here)? I know a little bit about history. I think you can assume that. Tell me, I’m all ears. When has Russia done that? They answer “I don’t know because it hasn’t happened.” So this future event is talking about an event that has already happened in our time and we are going to revisit history playing itself over again, but brought to a conclusion this time, because there is not going to be a third time. ‘I will draw you back’, ‘I will cause you to return’; that back and forth motion in the Hebrew sense should be understood in its definition. So it has to be one of the seven beastly kingdoms that is referred to in Scripture. Could it be Egypt? No. We know that for a fact. Assyrian Empire? Sorry, they’re done. Babylonian Empire? No. Persian Empire? Nowhere in God’s Word will it be drawn back again. Uh... part of the Persian Empire will in verse 5 in Ezekiel 38, but not as the Persian Empire taking the lead role. The Roman Empire? Many who teach eschatology believe it is a unified European Union, a reconstituted Holy Roman Empire that Antichrist is going to come out of and so forth and so forth. Well, hogwash. We know of two Islamic beastly empires, the first was the 7th Beast, which that first part of it was pushed back and wounded, which I already covered, which was the Battle of Tours under the charge of Charles (The Hammer) Martel. It didn’t kill the beast completely off, it just pushed it back from moving to what they wanted to get to so badly, and that was England. The devil knew if he got to England, then he got to the tribes. If he got to Britain and North Western Europe, especially on the coast lines, most of the tribes were under the devils bondage and God’s Word is a lie. That didn’t happen. There was another push and the final death blow came to the 7th Beast when the Ottoman Empire in 1920’s was finally defeated and dismantled. I’ve preached on the war in Vienna when the Ottoman Empire tried to take over that city. Remember the September 11th story? But the Ottoman Empire with its seat, its throne, smack in the middle of what we call Turkey today was an empire that lasted more than 600 years, an Islamic Empire. 80

And then once it was defeated, it tried to liberate itself and become westernized, but it is turning back into an Islamic empire as we speak. What Ezekiel is referring to in Ezekiel 38:4 and 39:2 is the Ottoman Empire. There is over 600 years of history and I don’t have time to teach on all that history. Go to Zechariah 9. Most of this chapter is judgment on Israel’s enemies, but then we get to verse 13. I am sure many of you have read this and read right through it. There are so many different things that are happening in Zechariah, I can’t even imagine the kind of dreams he was having, and visions, because they were so packed with information for different time periods. But let’s just go to verse 13, “When I have bent Judah for me [still yet to come], filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar. And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.” Something is going to happen where the Lord Himself, the Lord of Hosts shall defend them. We know in this Gog-Magog War that is going to happen. And I will get to that. But you can read right through verse 13 and not catch something here. “When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece...” Circle the words ‘O Greece’. Zechariah 9, when you understand the translation, clearly lists Turkey, or then, Ionia or Yavan... the primary player in these last days events attacking Israel. Now unfortunately you could go right by this verse and miss the prophecy because of a misleading translation. “I will raise up thy sons, O Zion, against the sons of Yavan (or Ionia).” Who were these people? They were mostly those people who occupied the western half of Turkey. If you draw a line down the center of Turkey, go west until you hit the Mediterranean Sea. These people that Zechariah says Zion will be fighting against are the sons of a place called Yavan. Some say Javan. Who were they? The Turks. Yavan (or Javan) was a descendant of Noah who came to live in the western coast area of Asia Minor, the western part of modern Turkey (our modern day Turkey, or western Turkey) in the area that eventually came to be known as Ionia. What Zechariah 9 is speaking of here is something that is going to happen in the last days and the return of Jesus the Messiah will appear over them. And of course, after this time, the Messiah will rule Israel and her land will be controlled by Jesus. I just wanted to point that out. The last part of the 8th Beast’s kingdom that will be dealt with, which is also Islamic, is a reconstituted Ottoman Empire. It might not be called that, but that is what it is. Let me just share with you a few things. I won’t have too much time to go into this but, “A hundred years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is re- emerging on the international arena. Furthermore, it intends to regain the 81

ground lost in the 19th-20th centuries, which is a direct threat to the interests of all the neighboring countries, including Russia.”

The map shows the Ottoman Empire’s largest expansion of their beastly kingdom. Obviously we see Turkey, the Balkan areas east of the Black Sea, Bursa, Belgrade. They tried to take Vienna up in the left hand corner, but were not able to. Do you see the Black Sea area? Do you see the little island in the northern area of the Black Sea? That is Crimea. It has been in the news lately because Russia has an important Navy sea port there, they decided to take it over. Do you think because they tried to take Ukraine over... I am just so sick of ignoramuses in the news media that have no clue what is really happening because they have no clue of history and they have no clue of what God’s Word says. That I am sure of. Crimea is not a Ukraine problem. Ukraine is just in the middle of the situation. Anyone that knows the situation of that area knows Crimea went back and forth for centuries between these countries. I don’t have the time to get into that history but, Turkey has their mindset on regaining what they lost; it is an Islamic mindset. Russia is making the move on these areas not because they are (as the media would have you believe) interested in expanding Russia again as they expanded during the Soviet era. There is a lot of things happening that I don’t talk about and it is a shame this ministry doesn’t have time for me to do a “But of the times” and talk about current events in the news and how it relates to the Bible. But Crimea, southern Ukraine (the most southern part of it), areas as far north as Hungary, Greece... and of course you see in the northern African areas, are all areas that are mention in 82

Ezekiel 38: 2, 5 and 6 that will be participants along with Turkey in this Gog-Magog War. And of course you see other areas there extending all the way down to Yemen. One of the last areas.

Above is another view of the empires expansion at its best. Now before 1920, most of these areas were already not part of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey being the last of the nations. But it gives us a pretty good idea of what the Ottoman Empire looked like. “...which is a direct threat to the interests of all the neighboring countries, including Russia”; and Russia knows this. Putin is a thug and he sees Turkey as wanna-be westernized. Turkey is using the European Union and using NATO, blinding them to what their true intentions are, but that will eventually come out. Mark my words. Consider the actions of the Turkish leadership during the past weeks that have caused serious concerns in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the EU.

Particularly noteworthy are the frictions of Ankara and Tel Aviv, which raise questions about preservation of the Alliance between the two. The Turkish leadership provides a strong support to the Palestinians, and threatened to appeal to the international authorities with a demand to monitor the Israeli nuclear program and promised to prevent the development of Israeli-rich gas fields in the Mediterranean.” 83

Remember what Ezekiel 38:12 says, “To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand ...” They don’t want Israel developing rich gas fields in the Mediterranean. They have been fighting them left and right. “Worst case scenarios should be considered as one of the options for the future development in the Middle East. One possibility is the return to the days of the 1960s and 1970s, when Israel was virtually in the siege of hostile neighbors. However, at this time the situation in Tel Aviv will be much worse, because Ankara [Turkey] can turn from an ally into an enemy more dangerous than all the Arab countries put together.

More dangerous than the Arab confederacy of Psalm 83. This doesn’t say that but I am saying that to you. [...] Ankara has been aggressively pursuing its policy towards Cyprus and has been trying to prevent the of oil and gas deposits at its shores going to Greek companies. Moreover, the Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagysh openly declared the possibility of using military force to prevent such a scenario.

But there is more to it. Turkey has also announced its plans to increase its Navy presence in the Adriatic Sea. It is known that in the near future a new "assignment" will be given to at least some of the 14 Turkish submarines. This way Ankara intends to strengthen its influence among the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), openly declaring this to the European Union that had its own plans for the future of BiH.

In the middle of the 18th century the Ottoman Empire has steadily weakened and lost its influence in the world on all fronts, starting with the Maghreb and ending with the Balkan and Caucasus. It was evidenced by lost wars with its neighbors, including Russia. Finally, in the middle of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had the contemptuous name of a "sick man of Europe". Such a characterization was fully justified considering losses in a war with Russia (1877-1878), clashes with the Balkan states, and loss of its Italian possessions in Libya1912-1913. The defeat in World War I meant not only the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, which had lost virtually all the Arab lands. The existence of Turkey in general as an independent state was at stake.

It seemed that the Turks have never recovered from the defeat of 1918. Yet, after 100 years of "gathering strength" Turkey seems to be going back to claim the lost.

To reclaim the lost; those territories that we saw on the maps. Inevitably, the... 84

And Russia knows this, but we have a bunch of dumb news media that just ignore the facts or they are just told to say something else and they are just there to collect their paycheck. I’m not sure. I feel sorry for the individuals that have to get their news and understanding of what is happening with current events from TV, print, whatever media news sources to get their information. They haven’t gotten it right in so long, I don’t remember the last time they did. Inevitably, the Turkish activity will be more manifested in the Caucasian and Crimean directions, which cannot but worry Russia.

Russia just beat them to the punch. And it did. We have a President that knows more about what happens on the golf course than he does other parts of the world. I’m convinced he knows nothing about the bible. And let me tell you, all our branches of government are just naive and clueless. The total population of Turkey is 80 million people. Available manpower is around 41 million people. Fit for service 35 million peoples. And what does Ezekiel 38:6 say at the end? “and all his bands...and many people with thee.” Reaching military age annually is 1.3 million people. Active front line personnel is 410,500. Active reserve personnel is almost 200,000. Presently it has 3,657 tanks. 8,532 armored vehicles. 961 self propelled guns. 2,152 tote artillery. 646 multiple launch rocket systems. Their air power consists of 989 aircraft total—which fighters and interceptors are 254; fixed wing attack aircraft 254; transport aircraft 437; trainer aircraft 245; helicopters 418; attack helicopters 36. It’s naval power consists of 16 frigates; 8 corvets; 14 submarines; 50 costal defense craft; 19 mine warfares. I could go on but that gives you an idea what is happening. Here is a little bit more information. “Turkey is a traditional partner, and even more traditional rival at Russia's southern borders. This 80,000,000-strong country is part of NATO, and the Turkic and Muslim people in Russia are the subject of Turkish "courtship." Russia should be concerned about the strengthened power of the Turkish army that is already one of the top ten in the world.

This information is already four years old. You ask why and you wonder why Russia took Crimea? Today, the Turkish army is the most organized, numerous and powerful state institution. Turkish army of half a million soldiers is the largest in size after the United States in the NATO military bloc. The Ministry of Defense of Turkey has five divisions: Air Force, Navy, The Army, Gendarmerie, and the Coast Guard.

Particular attention is paid to the creation of the modern Turkish arms. The efforts of the Turkish defense industry are aimed at developing and building their own aircraft, armored vehicles, tanks, and various electronics and missile weapons. Turkish Aerospace Industries Company is 85

engaged in the development and manufacture of aircraft under license. The objective of this venture is the creation of unmanned aerial vehicles.

It is important to note that most of the products produced by Turkish military companies are purchased by the national armed forces, and purchase volumes are constantly increasing. The Turkish fleet is larger than the fleet of any other country in the Black Sea due to the presence of new submarines and ships.

The armed forces are the guardians of the republican regime and secular values, separation of Islam from the state.

I am not going to read all of this, but you know at some point in time in past history Russia and Turkey were at war with each other over 30 times. Now the Turks are actively "courting" the representatives of Muslim, particularly the Turkic peoples of Russia. Turkey is seeking to increase its influence in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Crimea. Finally, the Turkish army is one of the pillars of NATO.

Today, Russia should pay special attention to its southern borders, where the powerful Turkish army is located.

I’ll have more things to say about what is happening and who built this up, but the point I want to make now is and if you remember anything, remember what I said in verse 4 in chapter 38 and verse 2 in chapter 9. Remember that. I will turn thee back, as scripture says, I will draw you back, I will shuwb you. I will cause you to return—because there is a back and forth motion there taking place in the Hebrew language being used. So therefore, it has to be some nation beastly empire that was there before that is going to return because God is doing the drawing back for His purposes and He will cause them to return. They are a yo-yo in God’s hands another words. Russia never was as far as Jerusalem and Israel goes. So we have to find a beastly empire that was and the latter part of the seventh beastly empire, the Ottoman empire came to exist, they existed for over 600 years, they were wounded, but not killed completely. And they are brought back to live and everybody is in awe of it. They will find out what they are in awe of. And who helped bring them back to life? Which also brought Islam back to life, as I already preached earlier in the Last Days Series? So just take this information and let it stew a while in your brain and when we come back to this subject again, we will continue where we left off. If God’s Word is anything, it is faith building. No matter where you turn, it gets it right. The rest of the world is lost, including most of the Christian world. That is why we need to keep existing and keep cutting God’s Word straight on these matters.

To be continued... 86

The Last Days Study Guide The Rise of Turkey

1. What empire is Ezekiel referring to in Ezekiel 38:4 and 39:2?

2. Who was Yavan?

3. Who would be the Ionians today?

4. Give the full meaning of shuwb.

5. The Beast is after spoil. What commodity is that most likely to be?

6. Who are the Turks currently wooing?

7. What is the general population count of Turkey?

8. Name who has the first and who has the second largest military bloc in NATO?

Armageddon

Open your bible to Revelation 16. I know exactly where I left off in Ezekiel 39:2. I’ll tie things in together. Just be patient. Something interesting happened today that most of the world is not paying attention to. Most of the Christian world is definitely not paying attention to it. Erdogan was elected, the first elected president of Turkey in almost 100 years after the Ottoman Empire dissolved. He had some competition but I personally think the whole processes was rigged. But coming out of Istanbul today, Turks began voting on Sunday with Tayyip Erdogan poised to become the country's first elected president, fulfilling his dream of what he calls a "new Turkey" and his opponents say will be an increasingly authoritarian nation.

A victory for Erdogan would seal his place in history after more than a decade as prime minister in which Turkey has emerged as a regional economic power, riding a wave of religiously conservative support to transform the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 [the year the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist] .

But his critics warn that a President Erdogan, with his roots in political Islam and intolerance of dissent, would lead the NATO member and European Union candidate further away from Ataturk's secular ideals.

In one central Istanbul district where opposition to Erdogan is strong, some voters said they did not want an authoritarian president, but one who would be non-partisan and inclusive.

"We don't want a president who is authoritarian and tainted, we want one who defends the parliamentary system and the people's interests," said architect Ahmet Kensoy, 62. "He should be independent and impartial, embracing all of society."

Opinion polls put Erdogan, 60, far ahead of two rivals competing for a five- year term as president. [The results are already in, he won.] Parliament has in the past chosen the head of state but this was changed under a law pushed through by Erdogan's government.

He has set his sights on serving two presidential terms, keeping him in power past 2023, the 100th anniversary of the secular republic. For a leader who refers frequently to Ottoman history in his speeches, the date has special significance. 89

"God willing a new Turkey will be established ... a strong Turkey is rising again from the ashes," Erdogan said on Saturday in his final campaign speech in the conservative stronghold of Konya in central Turkey.

His dream is to have the Ottoman Empire come back to life, and he would be the leader; or at the very least, come back to life and have that type of governmental system in power even after his own presidency is concluded or at his death. "Let's leave the old Turkey behind.” The prime minister has promised to exercise the full powers granted to him by current laws, unlike his predecessors who have played a mainly ceremonial role. But he also plans to change the constitution to establish a fully executive presidency.

The current constitution, written under military rule after a 1980 coup, would enable him to chair cabinet meetings and appoint the premier and members of top judicial bodies including the constitutional court and supreme council of judges.

What do you think he is going to do? Just like our system here in the United States, whoever is President can appoint people to judicial positions (i.e., nominate people to the Supreme Court). If you are a Democratic President, you don’t really nominate a Republican, especially a conservative Republican and vice versa. What do you think Erdogan is going to do? He is going to fill these judicial bodies, including the constitutional court, with Islam-leaning Sharia Law judges. “Are you 100% sure?” No, but I am 99% sure. That is based on other things that he’s said in the past. A one-man rule, similar to what we saw with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He will make his changes slowly, though some not that slow (as far as judicial councils), and Turkey will change. It has been changing. Erdogan's ruling AK Party scored a clear victory in local elections in March and a triumph on Sunday would emphatically put an end to the toughest year of his time in power.

A man casting his ballot at Ataturk Airport on Saturday voiced his concerns about what he said was "one-man rule getting stronger every day. I don't see a place for myself in that new Turkey Erdogan keeps talking about, that's why I stay living abroad."

For those of you who have been following this Gog-Magog War section of The Last Days series, this is not going to be surprising. You knew what the son of man had to prophecy against the powers that be, that would be in the land of Magog in these latter days. I told you it is not Russia and it has never been Russia. Do I think that just about all the nations of the world will be having some part in it, if anything, a political voice to either approve or disapprove what is going to be happening in Turkey? Sure. But whatever you thought Gog of the land of Magog was, it is not Russia. Now I know where I left off in Ezekiel 38 and 39. I will be coming back to it. I am piecemealing right now and then I will tie everything together and all the pieces will fit. But I want to bring 90 something else to your attention, Revelation 16:15. Of course chapter 15 deals with the seven plagues that are coming with the seven vials of wrath in Revelation chapter 16, and then we get to verse 15, “Behold, I [Jesus] come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” Most people think that Scripture is referring to physical clothes. It’s not. Verse 16, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” This is right before the seventh angel pours out his vial. We see another reference to Armageddon in Revelation 19. Verse 19, “And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.” It is referring to the same thing. I know the millennialists believe a thousand years goes by. I haven’t gone into that yet. I haven’t said whether there is a thousand years or there isn’t a thousand years. If there is, the beast survives – have you ever thought about that – because most people would plug this in after the millennial and Jesus Christ reigning on this earth for 1000 years. Now some don’t teach that, but some do. But no, it doesn’t. These two verses are talking about a gathering place where “the beast, and the kings of the earth[which kings incidentally?], and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.” And in Revelation 16:16, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” So where does this so-called battle, the mother of all battles, the Battle of Armageddon fit into the end times scenario, and, where is it located? The sixth vial which we just looked at in Revelation 16:14-16? “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” The sixth vial tells us that these kings and their armies will gather for battle in the great day of God at this place called in the Hebrew language Armageddon, the mother of all battles. Where is this place called Armageddon? It has been believed and been taught that the Hebrew word Armageddon means ‘mountain Megiddo’. Ninety-nine percent of everybody that teaches on this or writes a book about it believes it is ‘mountain Megiddo’ and that Armageddon designates a mountain somewhere in ancient Israel around the town of Megiddo. However, there is a problem with that. I really don’t how they get away with it. I guess people just don’t any research on their own to check out some of these Christian science fiction theories. I can understand as you follow somebody as they follow Christ, taking their word for it; but when it comes to the book of Revelation and when it comes to prophecy, you should be very careful. It started with Margaret MacDonald (which takes us back to volume one of The Last Days series). She started most of the non-sense which 91

Scofield and others took and then even exaggerated beyond her nonsense concern a lot of things we find in the book of Revelation and other places in the Old Testament. But there is no mountain of Megiddo. Now you might find it in on some modern maps because they just pencil it in under the approach of “this is where it might have been”. And of course, if you by a map book or you buy a book, whatever, you’re going to take those people’s word for it, whoever wrote it or whoever preached it. Why wouldn’t you, they went to divinity school, they paid their dues at some seminary somewhere. They should know their stuff, right? There is no mountain Megiddo. “Is there a Megiddo?” Absolutely, but there is no mountain there. That ancient size of Megiddo only consists of about ten acres. It’s a hill about sixty feet high. How does anybody call that a mountain? And how do the armies of the kings of the earth gather there on a ten acre spread, about a 60 foot high so- called mountain? If you don’t believe me, do your own research, but I have been proven reliable up to this point for anybody that has been following and tracking this. Even a atlas I have and use on occasion is garbage on this subject. “I am so confused I don’t know who to trust.” Well, you are not reading this series by accident if you haven’t figured it out yet. You know I keep digging for the truth and as fast as I can, I bring it to you. I try to verify in as many ways as I can so you know it is the truth. Sometimes I even get frustrated because most of the time I wish I could do more but time does not allow me to do that. So I just have to give you bits and pieces. So, there is no mountain of Megiddo. If you want to call a sixty foot high hill a mountain— which by the way in the archeology world is called a tell not a mountain—if you are going to do that, then you are really at the advanced stage of Christian Science Fiction theory writing. And this Megiddo, this tell, has many layers to it of ancient ruins, so we know there existed a Megiddo, but never a ‘mountain Megiddo’. Now there has been a few, not many, but a few “scholars” that have acknowledged that there is another translation for the word we find here in Revelation 16:16, Armageddon. Armageddon Har-mageddon Mageddon

Har-mageddon in Hebrew is a name. Usually in Hebrew, names often give literal information about the place being named. So instead of taking the word Mageddon to be the name of the town, the literal meaning of the word can be used. In Hebrew Mageddon means: a place of troops or assembly of troops. “So what are you saying? We are not suppose to take Mageddon (for instance) to be the name of a town and instead take the literal Hebrew meaning which means a place of troops, or assembly of troops?” Yes, Mageddon means: A place of troops; A mountain assembly of troops; A mountain rendezvous of troops. Therefore, instead of the commonly recognized translation of Armageddon 92 or Har-mageddon, as mountain Megiddo, in the context of these Revelation events, it should be translated “a mountain assembly of troops” or “a mountain rendezvous of troops”—which by the way if you compare with the sixth vial is consistent with the sixth vial—(we will look closer at that in the future)—which describes the armies of the world being gathered together in a specific place on the Day of the Lord. That Hebrew word Har-mageddon tells us that this place of gathering is indeed in the mountains and not in a town with layers of archeological evidence that it was a town, but is only about 60 foot high in its total height, which archeologists call a tell. This is going to be a place in the future where a mountain assembly of troops or a mountain rendezvous of troops are going to gather the kings of the earth for the mother of all battles, Armageddon. As I said, Hebrew names often given literal information about the place being named. For example, this will sound familiar to you, Bethel means The House of God; or, Bethlehem, the house of bread. It is giving you information about the place that is being named. It is very common in Hebrew. I am telling you the only mountain assembly of troops that could fit (and not even that) on that place called Megiddo (that is just the size of a tell) is the Boy Scouts, but even the Boy Scouts is too large of an assembly for Megiddo. I’m poking fun at it but it is a serious mistake...and God knows how many hundreds of thousands of pages have been penned if not millions which only gives you additional false information of what is really going to happen in the future. I know most Christians have the attitude, “I won’t be here.” Are you sure? Unless you are dead before that, are you sure? So on Armageddon, the armies of the world will gather, but the question is: On what mountains? Where is this battle to be fought? The only way to answer that question is to do what we always do, become biblical detectives. Search the Scriptures. Study the Scriptures that call for an end time battle in the mountains of Israel. That is where you have to look. If you read through the book of Revelation, especially the specific chapters that I’ll be touching on, that endtime battle, when it does occur, one we know: 1) it should be placed upon the mountains or in the mountains 2) it occurs on the great day of God almighty (Rev. 16:14), “to gather them to the battle of the great day of God almighty” 3) it is going to involve many nations of this world that are going to gather together there (Rev. 16:14-16) 4) it involves God’s wrath destroying these armies—which will tie into a trumpet. I will just tell you what trumpet it is, the seventh trumpet. We will go into that at a later time but turn there now to Revelation 11:18. “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” Then you go to the place in the 11:15 93

“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” And I will have more to say about this, but for your notes in how this is all going to tie in, take this down for now and we will come back to it at another time. So God’s wrath destroys these armies and it ties in with the sixth and seventh vial and the seventh trumpet. Now if we want to tie in all the criteria then you would have to go to the Old Testament and tie it in with Ezekiel 38 and 39. Go to Ezekiel 38. Ezekiel 38 and 39 makes a reference to this great battle in the mountains. See Scripture has to verify itself. 1) Ezekiel 38:8, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.” 2) Ezekiel 38:21, “And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother.” That alone is good enough but we have more. 3) Ezekiel 39:2, “And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee [I will sixth thee], and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.” Why? Because a mountain rendezvous of troops is going to take place, Armageddon, the assembly, the place where troops will assemble, will rendezvous—not some town or valley or whatever they want to call it in the Christian science fiction world. That was three. Now let’s go to the forth mention of it. 4) Ezekiel 39:4, “Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.” We will tie that in also. Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel... We didn’t have just one place that has referenced this, and I didn’t need to go very far, I could have stayed in one or two chapters here with four verses. Let’s continue. 5) Ezekiel 39:17, “And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.” 94

There is a repeated theme here, folks, of an enemy, a mountain assembly of troops, a mountain rendezvous of troops, a repeated theme of an enemy gathering or assembling on the mountains just as Har-mageddon means, a mountain assembly of troops that we find in the book of Revelation, which we also find verses here in the book of Ezekiel containing that same theme of troops gathering and assembling themselves for battle, a battle that we find taking place in Revelation 16:14-16. Unfortunately the very few that believe what I am teaching to be true, because they teach it also, make a mistake. They want to put a timeline of this at the so-called beginning of the tribulation period. Once again they can’t connect the dots—but that is why this ministry exists, to connect the dots, to bring God’s Word alive, not by Christian science fiction theory, but by what we find in the verifiable Word of God when it is made straight or cut straight. That is what rightly divided means in the Greek, in the place we find it in the New Testament, cut straight. I have more to say about these mountains.

To be continued...

The Last Days Study Guide Armageddon

1. What is a tell?

2. Where does Armageddon occur?

3. What does Har-mageddon mean?

4. Why was Erdogon’s election eyebrow raising?

5. Why does Christian Science Fiction eschatology have the Islamic Beast surviving Armageddon?

6. How large was the area of ancient Megiddo?

7. What did God warn us to do at this time of war?

Who Were the Ashchenaz?

Open your bible to I Chronicles 1:5. I received this message and an important message because it shows me that this person that follows the Last Days teaching very closely didn’t connect the dots. I asked myself, maybe I should have connected the dots, referring to what this person asked regarding Ashkenaz. The question is: “Help. How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians-Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? This person, knowing how I like the questions asked, gave me chapter and verse (if you have one that you are asking about). Don’t have me go hunting for it, include it in your message; and that is what this person did. I Chronicles 1:5-6: the family record of Adam through Abraham is found in this chapter. Verse five starts with the sons of Japheth. Japheth was one of the sons of Noah. It doesn’t say that here but we will go somewhere else where it does. ‘The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashchenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.’ I was doing some looking up on Tarshish so I can understand that more when I ran across this scripture and now I'm confused on Gomer being the father of Ashchenaz. I thought the Hebrew Tribes stemmed from Shem (not Japheth) through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. Absolutely and Scripture does not change that. And by now, if you are like this person that hasn’t connected the dots yet (though I’m pretty sure this person will as soon as they hear where I am going with this question), you are scratching your head also. “I thought the Hebrew tribes stemmed from Shem (not Japheth).” You are correct. Shem and eventually Eber and so forth through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. I guess names can be duplicated/repeated, but can you help clear this up for me?” That is not what happened here but I will clear it up for you. How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians- Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? They are not. Well the Ashchenaz are the sons of Gomer, but they are not what we know about God’s Word, the Lost Tribes. And I have to clarify that for you and I will. But first let’s go back to Genesis. I went there when I was teaching on this and reading concerning Noah’s family record. I want you to pay attention because it was a good question that shows me that even though I briefly mentioned it and went to the scriptures, it was not caught or connected. Genesis 10:1-3, “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz...” Then verse six gives us the genealogy of the sons of Ham, which we will skip. I like the way it starts there though, “and the sons of Ham”. Then we jump over to verse 21 (after it is done listing all the Hamites), “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of 98

Japheth the elder...” Have you ever noticed that Shem gets an introduction like the father of all the children of Eber and the brother of the elder? Ham does not get that kind of introduction in verse six in God’s Word. That is a subject for another time, but it is interesting. Genesis 10:21, “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.” Okay. Now we see Shem’s family record starting in Genesis 11:10 (after the Tower of Babel incident), “And these are the generations of Shem...” and it starts listing all the generations of Shem and it gets down to verse 27, “Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram...” and so forth. Then God calls Abram; and most of you know the story if you’ve been a Christian for a while. And this person is exactly right in this regard, but they are not correct in their assumption or their thinking. “I thought the Hebrew Tribes,” meaning Jacob’s sons (all 12 until Jacob did something under God’s direction with Joseph’s sons, which made them a 13 tribe unit), “stemmed from Shem (not Japheth) through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.” And that is what you still should keep thinking because that is the only correct answer. So then after what we just read in different places, How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians-Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? So how can the Scythians who are part of the Lost Tribes, who are descended from Eber and Abram (where the promises and all his genealogy after that that follows are promised to) be related to the Ashchenaz? Well they are related but how can they be the Lost Tribes? How can they be Ashchenaz and Hebrew at the same time? I pulled out one of the many bible dictionaries that I have (this happens to be an older one), and about Ashchenaz it reads, “A descendant of Noah through Japheth and Gomer.” That is what we read, in Genesis 10:3 and I Chronicles 1:6. “Eponymous ancestor of the successive inhabitants of an area,” listen closely, “between the Black and Caspian Seas.” Now if you look at a map, you will see the Black Sea along the northern border of Turkey and the Caspian Sea at the center and northern border of Iran. So most dictionaries will tell you the inhabitants of the area were Ashchenaz and they dwelt and lived between the Black and Caspian Sea. So what is it saying? Japheth and Gomer and eventually Ashchenaz dwelt and lived in the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, up in the Caucasus Mountains and even a little further north than that. That is what the dictionaries describe and define as their location or residence. It goes on to say in this particular dictionary that the Ashkenaz, or according to some cuneiform tablets, tell of a tribe of Askunaz or Askuzai who were the allies of the Manai (or Menia.. kind of close to Manasseh isn’t it) in the revolt against the Assyrians in the 7th century (which I already covered that)...and then it goes on to say, and this is where the dictionaries don’t give you the complete story. It goes on to read, “The Ashkenaz are to be identified with the Scythians mentioned by Herodotus.” And I am sure that is what this person is finding in their research as they are checking me out: that the Ashchenaz (because that is what the dictionaries define) were Scythians, and I am saying the Scythians were the Lost Tribes, but Ashchenaz is identified with Gomer, which came from one of Japheth’s sons, which was a son of Noah. So how can it be Hebrew and Ashchenaz at the same time? They are not, but the question is, Why are they not? Now let’s connect the dots. Go to Hosea 1:1-4. 99

“The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms”— because God was so fed up with the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah, He was going to make a point and He went to extremes to make the point of what was going to happen to them. And He said to Hosea, “ Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms,” Go marry a whore, Hosea. Think about it. I would clear out my ears and bang on my head a couple of times to make sure I’m getting the word of the Lord correctly, “You want me to go marry a whore?” Try getting away with that in today’s religious world or in Christianity. “Go marry a whore.” This is not me, this is God’s Word saying this. I’m just reading it. “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge [visit] the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The house of Israel, the tribes to the north, will cease to exist. Now it was not a genocide that happened, but they will cease to exist as they were known. Verse 5, “And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again.” If one child wasn’t bad enough, with doom predicted from the birth of that child, here comes another one, first a son, now a daughter. “And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah”— which means not having obtained mercy—“for I will no more have mercy”—or, I will not add any more mercy—“upon the house of Israel [which is separate from the house of Judah]; but I will utterly take them away. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” Which He did not. “Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” That name means not my people. So what do we have here? 1) He will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel So they are not going to be known by Israel any longer, because He will cause it to cease. 2) He will have no more mercy and will utterly take Israel and it will cease being a nation And don’t confuse it with the Israel that is in the Middle East today. So, no more mercy or not having obtained mercy, and ceasing from being a kingdom of the house of Israel 3) You will be called or be known as ‘not my people’ and I will not be your God But then, Hosea 1:10, “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered...” 100

So how is it going to cease? It will cease being a kingdom where they were originally located in the Promised Land. It will cease being a kingdom there and they will cease from having mercy. They will not be known by God as his people but a time would come when “the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place [meaning a time to come] where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” Now tie that into the question. Remember, I said the Assyrian Empire went into Israel and took away captives. And the majority of those captives that they took they settled in the areas of the northernest part of Iraq and northwestern areas of Iran, some even further south than that. Now not all the house of Israel were taken as captives because it was in waves. Some fled north into the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, in the Caucasus Mountains area. Now God says they will be not His people; You are not my people and I will not be your God. So this house of Israel that fled or were taken captive and then eventually released decades later—mostly because of the Scythians that fled in that area and started developing a powerful force of people, tribal units of people, that gave the Assyrian Empire hell, literally. And eventually it broke down the Assyrian Empire and the Babylonian Empire came into power. Anyway, they fled north or were taken in captivity and what God’s Word said happened, they lost their identity to history. It is like God put the blinders on the historians of the world to not be able to see what developed in the Ashchenaz area. That’s why it is mistakenly connected that the Ashkenaz are the Scythians. The Scythians are the Lost tribes of Israel. They just happened to have settled in the areas of the Ashchenaz and to the world, that force of nature called the Ten Tribes of the Lost House of Israel (that lost their tribal identities, lost their connection with the area they came from completely) historians failed to connect the two and have falsely identified some of the Scythians, which were the house of Israel, as the Ashchenazi. God planned it that way. Hosea 1:9, “Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” I will not have mercy and I will cause thee, the kingdom of the house of Israel, to cease. That all happened. They lost their identity. Now how can the Ashkenaz be the sons of Gomer? Because they are. BUT, the Ashchenaz—what the Scythian tribes became connected to because they overtook where the Ashchenaz lived eventually—their descendants were absorbed into the society and culture of the house of Israel much like the melting pot the United States became, much like how all the nations of western Europe came into the United States slowly but surely and it didn’t take very many decades to overtake the native people of this country. Prior to the mass colonization from the western European nations, the Indians didn’t blend in with the Western Europeans, they kind of separated themselves. But others did and unfortunately history doesn’t really cover that much regarding how many Indians really did blend in, and decide to leave their tee-pees (no offence to the Indians, but that is what they decided to do) because they saw progress. They say they saw things that they never saw before and how man can live and develop and progress. But that is another story and I don’t want to get into that. So what happened is the Indians either blended in to the melting pot of what we now call the United States, or, as some have done, stuck to their tribal units and they live in remote areas of the desert and so forth. Well that is what happened to the Ashkenaz people, or descendants of the Ashkenaz sons, son of Gomer, Japheth, son of Noah. So bottom line is the Ashchenaz either 101 blended in to the overpowering force of nature called the Lost Tribes of Israel, which lost their identity (but we know who they are now) or they packed up and moved. And that is what happened. So they came to be known as Scythians because of the Lost Tribes of Israel. And just like I read you in this dictionary, the mistake is thinking Scythians and the Ashchenaz people are one and the same, coming from the same father, Gomer. No they are not. Ashchenaz, true Ashchenaz were from Gomer. The ones that went into the area where Ashchenaz lived and took over were the lost tribes of Israel, or the northern tribes which was the House of Israel. And because they would lose their identity, they would lose their God, they would cease being a kingdom known as Israel, they became known as Ashchenaz for a very short time because that is the area they overtook and populated, first by the ones that fled, and then the release of that massive captivity. And they were a formidable foe that gave the Assyrian Empire hell and broke it down, as I preached and taught before in previous lessons. So you are right in that God’s Word says that the Ashchenaz can’t be the house of Israel, but the house of Israel became known as Ashchenaz because they had lost their identity. They lost their kingdom. They lost mercy that God had so much of time after time after time, but they would fall right back into worshipping and following false gods and creating false images. And God had enough. That was their punishment. And it goes on to say that Judah will be dealt with differently, but they will not be forgotten and they were not. Because you cannot cease being a kingdom and yet read in verse 10, “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”And that is where they started to be a force that God describes here as something that you cannot even number. The problem with historians of the present day or the last few hundred years, and even go back further than that, they assume that this population that grew by leaps and bounds in that area between the Black sea and the Caspian Sea were all from Ashchenaz. No they weren’t. They became known as that because of what God said, “Ye are not my people and I will not be your God.” That is why one of the children of Hosea was named that. They would lose their identity. They would get another identity for a period of time, and then they would move on (most of them westwardly) and they would gain different identities as they moved west. And the main identity that took hold eventually would be the Celtic people—but, that is for another time. Hopefully you have a better understanding how to connect the dots now.

To be continued...

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The Last Days Study Guide Who Were The Ashchenaz?

1. Why are the Lost Tribes identified with the Ashchenaz?

2. Where did the Lost Tribes stem from?

3. Where did the Ashchenaz stem from?

4. There are two key words that brings this seeming confusion to an end. What are they?

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Gog and Magog/Armageddon

Open your bible to Ezekiel 38. The last time I preached on this subject I started to tie it into Revelation 16 where we find the Armageddon War mentioned in the New Testament. And I told you that the Gog-Magog War and Armageddon are one and the same. I know what eschatology teachers have to say on the matter, but they have been wrong in just about everything else, so what makes you think they are right on this particular topic. Now we covered what Armageddon means in the New Testament. Armageddon or Har- mageddon, Mageddon being: a place of troops, or an assembly of troops, or a gathering of troops; or a mountain assembly of troops, or a mountain rendezvous of troops, or a mountain gathering of troops. Now I haven’t said where this mountain is located yet. I’ll get to that but that is not our subject matter now. I keep getting people asking me about different topics in the book of Revelation (e.g., the 144,000 for instance, the scarlet beast, and so forth). As far as the 144,000, God willing, it is just around the corner, but I still want to stay on this subject matter regarding the Gog-Magog War and Armageddon. They are one and the same. Again, I know what prophecy teachers, scholars, and eschatologist believe and teach: this takes place in Megiddo or mountain Megiddo—which is nothing more than a tell, a small hill. Not that many gatherings of troops could fit on this tell. Then of course they extend it to the valley and so forth. That is not where it takes place. I know where the ones that do fit it in with Ezekiel 38-39 believe this battle happens too. They believe for the most part that this occurs before the tribulation period because they have this mindset that there is a seven year tribulation—which I debunked. (Last Days, Volume 1) Very few connect Armageddon with Ezekiel 38-39. There are a few that do, but for the ones that do, their error is they still put this at the so-called “end of the tribulation” period. And of course as we already covered, they tried to connect the dots their way, being creative; not really getting it from the Bible, but just guessing who the players might be based on whoever is the superpower or strong country at the time and can fit the bill in these last days, for their interpretation of who is who as far as this invasion that we see here in Ezekiel 38 (which consists of verses 2, 5, and verse 6). They believe it is a Russian led invasion. I said, not it is not. So there we go differing again. And they say it is going to happen at the beginning of the tribulation for the most part. I said there is no tribulation period like they define it and it doesn’t happen at the beginning at any 7 year period—and, even if there was one, it would happen at the end. See, in this battle, this Gog-Magog War, this Armageddon battle, is a different type of battle because in this battle God’s Wrath, His steaming hot anger is aroused and He pours out in this battle (which is different than Psalm 83) his fiery wrath. We see it in Ezekiel 38. Ezekiel 38:17-19, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them? And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come 105 against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;” God’s fury is going to come up in His face. When God pours out His wrath in this final battle, it will be clear not just to this invading multinational force but to the world, who annihilates who. We see the same thing in Revelation after the seventh angel sounded, after the seventh trumpet in verse 15. Revelation11:15-18, “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great;” plus, “and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” He is blessing some and pouring out His wrath on others. (Now I just gave you when the 7th trumpet blows what happens, I know there are six more trumpet sounds before that, and you are probably asking why I don’t get to those six first. I will get to them.) So when this war happens which we find in Revelation 16 (chapters 15 & 16 are really tied together, which are the seven plagues and the seven vials of wrath) in verse 17 the seventh angel pours out his vial into the air. Verse 17, “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.” Then there is a great earthquake and so forth. The seventh trumpet and the seventh vial being poured are related to each other, things that will happen simultaneously. Next go to Zephaniah. It points to a future event that still hasn’t happened yet. Hopefully you are taking note of where it mentions God’s fierce anger once again. Zephaniah 3:8, “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations”—just like it says in Ezekiel and Revelation 16—“that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.” That hasn’t happened anywhere in history. Even though this was written thousands of years ago, it still hasn’t happened, where the Lord gathers the nations “that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.” God’s fierce anger, God’s wrath, both New and Old Testament and how He pours it out. And who is He pouring it out to? The nations that He gathers that we find involved in this Armageddon War, which is the Gog-Magog War in the Old Testament, the Armageddon War in the New Testament. We know who they are because Ezekiel 38:2, 5, 6 lists the countries, the nations that are involved; and, this is an end-time event, not a pre-tribulation event. 106

If you think about it, if God is destroying these invading multinational armies at the beginning of some tribulation period (let’s just say the beginning of a 7-year tribulation Christian science fiction theory period), then which armies at the end of seven years of the world have to gather to assemble and invade Israel at the so-called Armageddon War? And why can’t we find that in Scripture? I’ve said often, God’s Word verifies itself many times over. It doesn’t make any sense is what I am trying to tell you, but they haven’t really made much sense. And think about it, God’s fierce anger, God’s wrath, He is personally going to be involved in dealing with this invasion, unlike Psalm 83. I’m not saying He doesn’t have His hand in control of history, but still , earthly powers would be involved in that. God is coming down with the last war and He is taking care of business. Now who in their right mind, what nations in their right mind, would even dare try an invasion? And don’t tell me the Devil can influence all these nations. After seeing God totally annihilate these invading armies, God’s power, a supernatural type of power that this world has never seen, at least in our time, dealing with these invading armies at the so-called beginning of the tribulation, who in their right mind seven years later would even dare try an invasion? Not to mention, there will be individuals and nations of individuals that are part of the supporting force that invades. They will fear and tremble so bad that they will hide in dens and caves—which I will have something to say about that in the future, but not now. Think about it. I know as time passes we tend to forget, but 7years isn’t that long to have forgotten a supernatural experience of the likes man has probably never really seen. Who would even dare to try to come up against God again? If that doesn’t make it clear that Ezekiel 38-39 describes the battle of Armageddon, which is to take the place at the end of times (not a pre-tribulation which most eschatologists preaches), then I don’t know what would. I’m sorry. It doesn’t make any sense. It never has if you look close enough and search the Scriptures. At best it is creative thinking on their part, trying to put the rest of their fantasy story together, one big science fiction pile of you know what. Now, before I go any further. I said and I repeat, Ezekiel 38-39 and Revelation 16 are the same war. Ezekiel 38 mentions the nations involved in verses 2, 5, and 6. Then we jump over to verse Ezekiel 38:18 and it reads, “And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.” 107

If you were to translate brimstone, it would be stones that burn or burning stones. It is different than hail, my friend. It is almost like what sulfur does (and certain compounds of it) and how the skin reacts to it, an almost burning-like sensation. Ezekiel 38:23 “Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD. [39:1] Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee,”—or, I will sixth thee. Sixth thee with what? Sixth thee with plagues. You will find some translators say, I will strike thee with six plagues. What are the six plagues? We don’t have to go any further than what we just read in verse 22: 1) Great Shaking; 2) Pestilence; 3) Blood, Overflowing Rain; 4) Great Hailstones; 5) Fire; 6) Brimstone. Now can we find in the New Testament six events such as these kind of plagues that closely resemble or are an exact match to what is listed here in Ezekiel 38? Absolutely. Now I know what you are going to say, “In Revelation 16 there are seven plagues.” That is right, there are seven plagues and that is because there is one thing added here that is not in Ezekiel 38, but I will get to that. Prior in Revelation 15:7 it reads, “And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.” Then in chapter 16 it starts listing these plagues, the seven vials of wrath. Let’s go to Revelation 16:1, “And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.” This is it, one of the final events to happen. “And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore”—circle grievous sore, that is number one—“ upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.” (Teaching on the Mark of the Beast can be found in the Last Days series Volume 4) “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man”— circle blood there—“and every living soul died in the sea.” What sea? This is not all the oceans around the world incidentally. “And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.” So we are still dealing with the blood plague here. It isn’t an additional one. It is still a blood plague. So even though you should circle it again, it is still part of the second plague. “And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.” So we have only dealt with two plagues so far. Let’s continue, “And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.”Circle fire. Man will be scorched with fire. Now I am not going to get to the details. I have my opinion on what I think some of these things could be and actually look like in our day and age, but they are just opinions and at this point I don’t think it is worth it just giving my opinion. If these are supernatural acts, it could be a combination of all kinds of different things. But some of these eschatologists and prophecy 108 teachers are saying it is going to be an ICBM or it is going to be this or that. I don’t go that far. I don’t know what God is going to use. We’re just covering what is going to happen in a general sense. “And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.” So that was event number three. And you wonder why they are going to end up in the Lake of Fire? Almost up to this point it is like God saying they had a chance to have a change of mind but they still won’t. “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” That is number four of the plagues, and they still will not have a change of mind. Now I am going to skip down to verse 17 and then we will come back. Revelation 16:17, “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake”—event number 5— “such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” And God willing, I will get to that also. “And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail”—number six—“out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Here is the New Testament ‘sixth thee,’ but there is something added in the New Testament that we don’t find in Ezekiel 38-39. It is at this point that we go back to verse 12. “And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” So drying up the rivers or pouring out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, that water was dried up that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared would be the seventh plague. And believe me, when you are dealing with blood in all the other waters that we find mentioned earlier, drying up the Euphrates and the water thereof (which means it might even affect the river Tigris) will be detrimental to areas that depend upon those waters. And that would be the seventh plague which is not mentioned in Ezekiel 38. The only thing that is different in Ezekiel 38-39 is found here in verse 12 found in Rev 16, because there is an additional thing that happens. And because there is an additional thing that happens, a lot of these eschatologists say, “Since it doesn’t match up perfectly, it can’t be that.” Then what else is it going to be? Show me where 109 else in scripture it is so close, and, some things are exact to what we find in Ezekiel 38-39, when we look at Revelation 16. I mean Ezekiel 38:19 there is a great shaking. Revelation 16:18, a great earthquake. We have pestilence in Ezekiel 38:22 and in Revelation 16:2, “noisome and grievous sore”. Blood we find in Ezekiel 38:22, Revelation 16:3, “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea,” and then verse four, more blood poured out upon the “rivers and fountains of waters”. Great hailstones in Ezekiel 38:22 and in Revelation 16:21, “Great hail out of heaven”. I mean FIRE Ezekiel 38:22, Revelation 16:8, “power was given unto him to scorch men with fire”. How much more evidence do you need? How stubborn do you have to be to not connect the dots. I know it does not fit into the Christian science fiction theory completely according to their creative thinking, which is fiction, but let’s stay with the truth. Let’s stay with the verifiable words of God. These things are closely matched and you cannot find it this close anywhere else. Ezekiel looking to the future saw what we find in Revelation 16 at the end of time, because of this Gog or Magog War or this War of Armageddon, when this assembly, this gathering of troops takes place at a certain location—which I will get to next time, God willing. I don’t know what it is going to take to convince these people. All I can do is present to you the information that is in God’s Word and hopefully the light of God’s Word will bring sight and they can see for themselves that their theories don’t match up. This war, whatever you want to call it, the Gog-Magog War or the Armageddon War (which are one and the same) is going to happen and it is not going to happen at the pre-tribulation period. It is going to happen at the end of days when the very last events, when the 7 plagues and 7 vials of wrath are poured out, because God has had enough and He is angry and His wrath is coming with Him. He is going to deal with these nations His way with His power, and the amazing thing is, the people that are involved, the nations that are involved, and probably some looking on that are not involved, will still unfortunately not have a change of mind of who God and who His son are. They will still support Allah. And they will bismillah all the way into the Lake of Fire because Judgment is coming and He is the one that can righteously judge all mankind, all nations, and He will. These two events are one in the same. Now I will get to where this is going to take place. This will aggravate more of the Christians Science theory that is out there, no it is not going to be in the valley of Megiddo or Megiddo hill or Megiddo Mountain or whatever you want to call it. It is going to take place somewhere else and it is clearly shown where in the Scripture. Ezekiel 38-39 and Revelation 16 are referring back and forth to each other about the Gog-Magog War, the Armageddon War.

To be continued...

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The Last Days Study Guide Gog and Magog/Armageddon

1. Do a side-by-side chart comparing the plague verses of Ezekiel 38 with Revelation 16.

2. What plague is not listed in Ezekiel 38?

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112

Gog & Magog Update

I understand the people that email me or make the phone calls that have either not heard the messages on Psalm 83, or they heard what they wanted to hear in the Gog-Magog teaching. I can understand it is hard for them to give up the Christian science fiction nonsense that is out there and that has been in their brain for so long. Then, something new comes around and they grasp this particular information, or that particular information, and they try to incorporate that into what they have already memorized and learned about eschatology for these last days and its relationship to the Bible based on Christian science fiction nonsense. I understand that for those people it is going to take a while for them to understand that all that stuff is nonsense. It’s made up—which is why I call it Christian science fiction. It has very few proofs in the Bible to verify it as accurate. Those of you that have watched for a while know exactly where I stand on that. I’ve been preaching on this for years and years now. What surprises me is not even a week goes by, not even a week, where somebody that I know has been listening for a very long time starts retreating from the truth and falling back into that nonsense because certain events look similar to the Christian science fiction nonsense out there and can be applied to possibly what is happening today. For example, I got all kinds of questions concerning the events of today;“Well, you said Russia was not Gog of Magog but it looks like they are coming down. So, could it possibly be the beginning of the end, and what is prophesied in Ezekiel 38 & 39?”

No, what you are seeing today is not what is happening in Ezekiel 38 & 39. It’s just not happening, folks. It surprises me to no end...

Are you aware there is approximately 1500 pages of written information that you can comb through, read through—not to mention, much more than what has already been put in written format available in a video format, which goes beyond any 1500 pages? 1500 pages of information is available and in those 1500 pages, there are about ten to thirteen chapters in each volume. At the end of each volume, there is a little quiz of questions. The reason why I wanted those questions at the end of each chapter is because once you get through the chapter—if you have read through the chapter and comprehended it, digested everything in those chapters—and take the quiz, if you are able to answer all those questions, then you know for a fact that you pretty much have that chapter down and you can move on to the next chapter. How many of you have even taken the quiz that is available at the end of each chapter? I encourage you to take those quizzes because some of the questions I am getting, you wouldn’t be asking if you took those quizzes. It is a teaching tool. It allows you to check yourself, whether you have totally understood what you just read. If you can’t even answer the question, instead of trying to go back and just seek that answer, try reading the whole chapter again and take the quiz again. Do it to the point where you don’t have any doubts how you would answer any of those questions and you are 100% confident in your answers. And by the way, don’t just make up an answer. In fact, what you probably should do is answer all the questions and then go back and reread the chapter 113 to verify if you answered them correctly. Am I serious? Yes. If you are a serious student of God’s Word, that is what you would do. But most Christians just haphazardly go through God’s Word (or anything that they study) just to try to get the gist of what was being said or read. And I can see it in your questions, that you haven’t totally comprehended what was presented. If you did, when you send me your questions, you would give the answer that I have provided to you in the chapter and restructure the question, asking me in a different light, “I know you said this, but what about...? Seems like things are changing a little bit. What are your thoughts?” I’m being very general here, but I know you get the gist of what I am saying.

I even had some people ask if I was going to change my teaching because it looks like the Psalm 83 War is not going to happen before the Gog-Magog War. No, I’m not. I don’t see any signs of the Gog-Magog War on the horizon yet. I see plenty for the Psalm 83 War rapidly approaching, but not the Gog-Magog War. Why? Because there is one condition that hasn’t been met yet. Go to Ezekiel 38.

By the way, I’ve said Turkey is the main player in the Gog-Magog War. They are really silent right now in comparison with everyone else going on. Yes, they are fighting their skirmishes with the Kurds on their borders, but they are fairly silent. What I mean by silent is they don’t have any war planes flying over areas of northern Iraq and Syria dropping bombs. They are not shooting missiles over. They are not sending massive amounts of ground troops to fight ISIS and every other terrorist group out there. Compared to the rest of the people getting involved, the rest of the nations, they are really silent, because it is not their time yet.

In Ezekiel 38, we see the coalition members in the second, fifth and sixth verses. In verse 10 it says, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: And thou [the Gog-Magog coalition] shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest...”

If we are in the Gog-Magog War time period right now as so many Christian science fiction teachers are proclaiming, then God’s Word is a lie. It surely is not accurate because Ezekiel says, “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages.” Now I don’t know how much you know about what is happening in Israel, but because of the terrorism they face, they are not dwelling securely. “And thou [the Gog-Magog coalition] shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest...” Tell me, when since 1948 has Israel been at rest? They have already fought several wars. They are constantly being threatened. They had to develop the Iron Dome for the constant missile attacks. Think about it. When have they been at rest?

“I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates...”

Neither bars nor gates. Does that describe Israel today? Israel has hundreds of miles of walls and gates. Their projected plan goes way beyond the Green Line Project of ninety-nine miles of walls 114 and gates. That is a thing of the past. They surpassed that by leaps and bounds. The projected amount of walls and gates to protect them is now at 422 miles. How do 422 miles of walls and gates equate to “the land of unwalled villages” – because they are at rest now and they’re dwelling safely? How?

And, why do they have these walls and gates? Because of the coalition that we saw in Psalm 83, that coalition is the nations that surround Israel, starting with the Tents of Edom.

Isn’t it ironic, their four blood moons came and went and nothing spectacular happened. We didn’t get raptured in September. The world didn’t collapse in on itself. And antichrist, according to their theories, hasn’t taken his place in the Middle East to set up his kingdom. All these things that so many predicted and proclaimed to happen didn’t happen. John Hagee and Mark Blitz, each who put books together about the four blood moons, have been pretty quiet, haven’t they? Their event came and went and nothing really happened. What is new? More Christian science fiction nonsense. I said at least a year and a half ago, blood moons are nothing unique. They come and go. I have no problem understanding their trying to draw conclusions from them— because using the moons the way God used the moons (not how it was twisted by Satan) are good prediction tools of times and seasons and events that do take place (which I haven’t gotten to yet)—but they went one step too far with this four blood moon nonsense. On their anniversary of the last blood moon, I was going to read some of their predictions of what they said was going to happen, and it is a long list. But I said, why waste my time. People that have ears to hear will say once again, these false prophets and their predictions have put a black eye on Christianity with their nonsense, because it makes us look silly. For an on-looking world that already mocks Christianity, it just added to the list of things that they will mock us for; and they will group all of us together in one lump sum, even though I preach totally against the Christian science fiction theory. They will throw me and you into that same group as crazy Christians, predicting the end of the world, predicting this and that, and once again it didn’t happen. What’s new, that’s been going on for centuries. What’s new?

The events we read of in Ezekiel 38 still haven’t happened yet. So why is everybody jumping the gun? And I have said Psalm 83 needs to take place first before Ezekiel 38 and 39. Listen, if I am wrong, hallelujah! Because we are that much more closer to the end... if Ezekiel 38 and 39 is approaching and that is what we are seeing; the preliminary events we are seeing with Syria and especially Northern Iraq, and now with the Russia’s involvement (because of a weak US stance against ISIS).

I think our President thought, “Let’s lay down some bombs and discourage ISIS and they will go away.” It is not just ISIS by the way but, that didn’t work. And everybody says “Well, Russia is Gog,” the evil Gog, “and look, they are coming down and they will be attacking Israel shortly.” No they are not. See, I understand what Russia is doing. And, the Western world doesn’t understand Russia’s problem. 115

Now, I have an article here, from Wally Shoebat —which I think he has good intentions, and some of the things he says on different subjects are pretty good, but surely not on this subject. He says,

“Make No Mistake About It, Russia’s Invasion Of Syria Is A Holy Christian Crusade [No it is not], Done To Protect Christianity. [No it is not] Russia Is Truly A Christian Nation [No it is not], And May God Aid Her In The War Against Evil And Islamic Tyranny”

I won’t share with you the whole article, but it goes on to say, “Putin is the St. Constantine of our time.” Well, that isn’t a compliment. Anyone that has ever heard me preach on Constantine would realize that. And if you haven’t heard that, that is what the Last Days series is for, for you to go and learn from it. Get caught up. Putin is not the St. Constantine of our time. Putin is Putin—but if he was, I would be insulted if I was Putin, because Constantine was no hero of Christianity, as many have mistakenly made him out to be. I already gave you the reasons for that.

“Putin is the St. Constantine of our time, for like that priestly king of old, he has unsheathed the holy sword of the Church to strike down the enemies of God for the cause of humanity. Russia is following the Christian precept of loving God, honoring the state, and defending the brethren. The Russians are abiding by the teachings of St. Peter...”

And it goes on and on, and I am not going to read you all this as it is not worth it. You can read it yourself if you want. It’s really not worth it.

Now someone, like Walid Shoebat and his ministries are proclaiming that what Putin is doing is comparable to the Crusades against the Muslim world, starting about 1000 years ago. And I preached against the Crusades and how the Crusades were used in evil hands to accomplish evil things. I gave you a complete opposite story than the common story of how the Christians were a Holy Crusade. Remember that?

(If these things don’t come to your memory, those of you who have been following this series, when you see articles like this one pop up, then you have a comprehension problem. And I am not trying to insult you, but you need to go back and review the teaching because you seem to remember the Christian Science Fiction nonsense, but have forgotten the things you were taught by me and this ministry.)

I came against the “Christian” Crusades. I don’t think they were Christian, but I came against the Crusades strongly. Now if you want to, in the correct manner, say Putin is like the Crusaders of old (not holy), then I will give you that—if you understand what the Crusades are all about and not the history that is pedaled and believed, especially in the Christian world. 116

Putin is an ex-KGB (I say “ex” because that is politically correct), but he is a KGB member. He is a KGB thug. But I understand why he is a thug; and in fact, if our country had to go to war, and this is going to upset some of you, I’d rather have Putin as president right now than Obama. But Putin is not carrying out a holy war. He cares less about Christianity. He cares less about the relicts and the monasteries and so forth that are being destroyed by ISIS in Syria and northern Iraq. He cares less about the Christian artifacts. He cares less about any of those things. He is using Christianity, Russia-style, to advance his agenda. But I know what his agenda is apart from what you are being told by news agencies, governments, and Christian preachers and teachers. It is not just about him trying to get the area back that the USSR lost (the Soviet Union) when it fell apart. It is a lot more than that my friend. Everything that I study, Putin understands the war that he is in with Islam. He understands it.

“What do you mean by that?”

There are 17 million Muslims in Russia. And that is a low figure in my opinion. Islam will be the predominant religion by the year 2050, according to the experts that put these statistics together. I think if the Lord doesn’t come back, it will be sooner than that just by what is happening in the population growth figures that are available. For every Russian baby that is born, there are ten Muslim babies born. What do you think is going to happen with that kind of ratio? Moscow has a population of about ten million, with almost two million of that being Muslim.

See, Putin understands that you need force and you need to exercise force if you want to maintain the status quo at the very least and (let’s just put it this way) keep the Muslims in line. And he understands that he doesn’t need an outside antagonizing influence to create problems within its own borders and own country. Nobody talks about the problems with Islam in Russia. Russians know there is a problem. Putin definitely knows there is a problem. Now I am not a Russia fan, and I surely am not a Putin fan, but I understand his agenda. I understand what is happening in the Ukraine, which the news media outlets and most of the people that write about it don’t understand. What you are seeing, that no one talks about, is a religious war in the Ukraine. Maybe I’ll do a program or two on that, to give you the real happenings behind what is happening there. It is a religious war. And, Putin understands this. Listen, the Middle East is a lot closer to Russia geographically than the United States of America. Now, Russia’s involvement and whether they are able to be successful in keeping Assad’s regime in Syria intact remains to be seen. But if anything, they are involved because of a lack of United States involvement at this point, and unfortunately... Listen I hate war, I think all war is evil. All war is an extension of sin and the ugliness of sin. That is the fruition of it. I wish there were no wars but, unfortunately there are. As long as man is on this planet, before Jesus comes, there will always be wars and rumors of wars. Even Christ said that. But because of the United States’ lack of involvement, I don’t think the Russians had any other choice. Now their coalition, whether they realize it or not, is also a very evil coalition due to getting Iran involved and possibly even China. Why China is getting involved, I’m still trying to sort out. If I come to an answer, I’ll let you know but, I don’t think they are going to be that much involved to tell you the truth. They may fly a few sorties 117 over, but that is about it. And their interest is purely because of probably resources that they desperately need, but we will see.

But I understand why Russia is there. All it is going to do is cause more unstableness in my opinion. But if they are successful in establishing Assad’s regime again, and if they are successful in somehow defeating ISIS, something we were not willing to do, what do you think it is going to accomplish, including for the Assad regime or any other regime that is still around? I’m being very general right now for a reason, but, it is going to develop the confidence to come against Israel with their own coalition, or confederacy in the future, because they think they have the backing of Russia, Iran...

Listen, I believe Psalm 83, Isaiah 17, and the Elam prophecies are all in close proximity to each other and going to happen almost at the same time, if not at the same time, but they are not part of the Gog-Magog prophecies. I want to make that very clear. Now Iran, the remnants of Iran that are still there after the Elam prophecies are fulfilled, will be. Remember, Elam is not all of Iran. It is only a very small portion of it, an area in prophecy that God deals with. By the way, the areas of the Elam prophecies have most of the nuclear facilities in Iran, not all, but most.

So we have Russia – either they are going to cause more unstableness or they are going to fortify the regime that is there now, make it stronger, be successful, retreat back to Russia, and give it the false security that Iran, Syria, Iraqis, Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Hamas will need to carry out their evil plan of destroy Israel and take over the land.

I know this is very general and I will have more to say about it in the future, but as a refresher to put you back on track, so you are not led astray by every blowhard that comes by, you have to remember Psalm 83 is a preliminary war before the Gog-Magog War. Now Psalm 83 might also include Isaiah 17 and the Damascus prophecies... and probably also the Elam prophecies; not necessarily in that order, but all in proximity to Psalm 83. Or, either Isaiah 17 or the Elam prophecies could take place first, which finally triggers the Psalm 83 confederacy to come against Israel. There are many different possibilities but it is going to happen, and this is going to happen before the Gog Magog War.

Psalm 83:1-3, “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.”

And I told you “hidden ones” consists of both houses of Israel. And you know verses 1-5 is the confederacy’s general plan. Let me tell you right now, any confederacy that develops against the land of Israel will also consider the “hidden ones”, and how they will react. I believe the “hidden ones” are the Ephraimites, the United States. I am not saying it will necessarily happen this way but, I wouldn’t be surprised if the “hidden ones” give the inclination that they will stay uninvolved when this confederacy forms their evil plans and pursues the taking over of Israel to eliminate it and its people from the map. But we will see how that plays out. 118

And of course verses 6-8 is the participants.

“The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.”

We drew on a map who all the participants are, including Egypt, but not necessarily Egypt in totality, more of the Sinai Peninsula. And why wouldn’t they? Egypt is having their own problems dealing with the terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula. It is a constant problem. But the first one I want you to look at in verse 6 is the “tabernacles of Edom”. Scratch out tabernacles. It is a bad translation. Literally, it is the tents of Edom.

Who are the tents of Edom? The trigger point that will cause the Psalm 83 confederacy to take place and a war to begin. It is the refugees, the Palestinian refugees. The tents of Edom. Nothing describes them better than inhabitants living in tents. Now most of them don’t live in tents any longer. They live in mostly rundown dilapidated buildings if you want to call them that, both in the West Bank and Gaza, and some other areas. The tents of Edom, and the Ishmaelites of Moab, and the Hagarenes...the refugees are going to be the problem. Now in Hebrew, anytime you have a list of or group of things listed in the Scriptures, it is like reading a label on a jar. The label tells you what the ingredients are. If you know anything about labeling, ingredient content is listed in descending order, the first ingredient being the predominate ingredient. Then as you go down the list, for instance, the second ingredient listed would have the second most presence in that jar. Then the third, forth, and so on all the way down to the last ingredient, which has the least amount of presence that jar, or can, or box. In Hebrew, in this case, the tents of Edom is the cause of this Psalm 83 War.

Asaph wrote 12 different Psalms. He was a seer. Jeremiah was considered that too. It is almost like he saw into the future, God giving him the information, who would be predominantly the ones causing the problem with the rest of these coalition players joining in with the Tents of Edom. Remember the Palestinians ran in 1948 because they thought they would be eliminated. Jordan doesn’t want them. Syria doesn’t want them. Saudi Arabia doesn’t want them. So they are left in no man’s land, mostly in the West Bank area. The photo above shows what the tents of Edom looked like shortly after 1948. 119

Not that much has changed, except they are living in more dilapidated buildings now; but this photo shows the modern day tents in these refugee camps. These are the tents of Edom. A people that are refused by their own race. The Arabs don’t want them even though they are Arabs.

Why do Palestinians still live in these refugee camps? Why haven’t the Arab countries surrounding Israel taken them in? Let me just read you a little brief history just in case you start getting emotional-feeling for these people.

Why do Palestinians in Gaza and other areas still live in refugee camps? Did the Israelis force Palestinians to stay in the squalid overcrowded camps?

Palestinians still live in refugee camps, even when the camps are in Palestinian Authority controlled areas, because the PLO opposes and prevents refugee resettlement. As the PLO slogan goes, A Palestinian refugee never moves out of his camp except to return home.

And of course to them, their home is in Israel.

While the PLO has done its best to keep Palestinians in refugee camps, Israel has done its best to move Palestinians out of the camps and into new homes. Israel even started a heavily subsidized “build-your-own-home” program [years ago] for Palestinian refugees. According to an early description of the program:

Nine new residential schemes have been built so far, housing some ten thousand families that have chosen to vacate the camps. Each family was given a plot of land with full infrastructure...

The new neighborhoods were built on state land within municipal areas near the camps, and each had an electricity network, water and a sanitation system ... a road system, paved sidewalks and developed surroundings. Public buildings were constructed in each neighborhood such as modern schools, health clinics and shopping centers, and land was allocated for mosques. 120

... As soon as his house is built, the refugee becomes the full property owner, and in due course his property is registered in the Land Register. (Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District, 1967 – 1987; Israel, Ministry of Defense, 1987)

The vacated homes in the refugee camps were taken down with the goal of eventually creating enough open space so that the camps themselves could be rebuilt as further new neighborhoods for the refugees.

And who is doing this? Not the Palestinian organizations, but the Israelis.

It’s not surprising that the PLO vehemently opposed this program – after all, former residents of a refugee camp, now living in a nice home in a new neighborhood, would have a stake in supporting peace and opposing violence, exactly the opposite of the PLO’s strategy.

What is perhaps surprising is that the United Nations also opposed the program, and passed harsh resolutions demanding that Israel remove the Palestinians from their new homes and return them to the squalid camps. For example, UN General Assembly Resolution 31/15 of Nov. 23, 1976:

Calls once more upon Israel:

(a) To take effective steps immediately for the return of the refugees concerned to the camps from which they were removed in the Gaza Strip and to provide adequate shelters for their accommodation;

Said another way, take them out of the refugee homes they were just put in and put them back in the refugee camps, and make sure they have adequate shelters in those camps. Does that make any sense to you!?! Has the media informed you of that? Have you read that anywhere? But that was a resolution back in 1976: take them out of the homes, take them out of the infrastructures that you built for them, the schools, the streets, everything that you provided that were brand new, and put them back into a camp, a tent, tents like you saw in the second photo. If you were a Palestinian and you were sick of the violence, what would you prefer? Go back to that pit, or stay in a new home that you were provided by the Israelis?

(b) To desist from further removal of refuges and destruction of their shelters.

In short, don’t remove any more refugees from that camp, and don’t take down their tent cities to build them new homes.

The narrative has been skewed, my friend—and not just by the evil Palestinian authorities that don’t really care about their people, but also by one of the most evil organization running loose 121 on this planet today, the United Nations and the people that govern the United Nations...who someday, I’ll talk about.

Similarly, UNGA Resolution 34/52 of November 23, 1979 declared that:

measures to resettle Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip away from their homes and property from which they were displaced constitute a violation of their inalienable right to return;

Now we are getting to the meat of it.

1. Calls once more upon Israel to desist from removal and resettlement of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and from destruction of their shelters;

Perhaps thanks to this support from the UN, the PLO began threatening to kill any refugee who would move out of the camps. After a few such attacks, the build-your-own-home program died, and that is why there are still Palestinians refugee camps in Gaza.

How does the UN define just who qualifies as a Palestinian refugee? And are the UN’s figures for the number of Palestinian refugees accurate?

The UN’s figures are notoriously inaccurate, first of all because of the organization’s curious definition of who qualifies to be considered a Palestinian refugee. According to the UNRWA website (the link to the paragraph below no longer works, but here is a link to a similar UNRWA statement):

Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants...

Not just the people that lived through that time, which most of them are dead and gone by now, but also descendants.

...of persons who became refugees in 1948. The number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than four million in 2002, and continues to rise due to natural population growth. (emphasis added) 122

There are serious problems with considering descendants of refugees to be refugees themselves. Indeed, if one follows this definition, then the more than 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who came to Israel after 1948 were nonetheless still refugees even after receiving Israeli citizenship, as are all their descendants (since, in these claims, descendants of Palestinian refugees are themselves considered refugees, even if they have acquired citizenship, such as Palestinian refugees in Jordan). That is, there would be in Israel today at least 3 million Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

That is if you follow that logic.

In addition, the UN definition contradicts international law, under which descendants of refugees are not considered to be refugees. Thus, under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who:

owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

What a bunch of garbage.

There is no room under this definition for a descendant of a refugee to be considered a refugee. The UN got around this problem by creating a loophole – the usual refugee conventions do not apply to people receiving aid from UNRWA (and only Palestinians receive aid from UNRWA).

Whatever the definition, are the UN figures for the number of Palestinian refugees accurate?

No, as the UN itself has admitted. For example, in the Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – 1 July 1997 - 30 June 1998, the UN concedes that:

UNRWA registration figures are based on information voluntarily supplied by refugees primarily for the purpose of obtaining access to Agency services, and hence cannot be considered statistically valid demographic data; the number of registered refugees present in the Agency's area of operations is almost certainly less that the population recorded. 123

Since the refugee figures are based on “voluntarily supplied” information given for the purpose of obtaining services, such as financial aid and food rations, there is obvious incentive for people to falsely claim to be refugees to get services to which they are not entitled. Especially since, as previously stated, refugees don’t actually have to live in refugee camps.

So you get all the entitlements if you stay in the camp, even though you don’t have to stay in the camp. So you don’t have to go out there. It is almost like what the Democrats did with welfare back in the 60’s, “We’ll provide for you.” And all it has produced is a lazy society that is not willing to go out there and try to better themselves, because they know they have at least this much that is provided by the government for their sustainability. It is a sick system. Yes, there are some that do need assistance, but you would be surprised how many don’t even try to get out of the system, because they can at least rely on whatever they receive from the system. It is like what happened when they raised the minimum wage in Washington state to $15.00 an hour. People that were receiving government assistance that took on full-time jobs making $15.00 an hour were eventually disqualified from receiving government assistance because of their income. So, they stopped working or started working only part-time to keep the $15.00 an hour while still taking advantage of government assistance programs such as food assistance, medical, and stuff like that (which has changed some because of Obamacare). It is a sick system. If anything it keeps the people down. It doesn’t give them any vision. It surely doesn’t give them any hope. In a sense, this is what you are seeing here with these Palestinian refugees: government will give you enough assistance to keep you angry about the condition you are in, but not angry enough to get out of it and do something about it because we lifted the restrictions and we cooperated with the Israelis to incorporate you back into society, and you wouldn’t have to move very far to do it, to be an active participant of society. Israel tried for 20 years, it was shot down!

There is also incentive never to report deaths of people considered to be refugees – since the rations for the deceased would be discontinued.

The results are predictable: sacks of rice and flour with the UNRWA logo are resold everyday by merchants in Arab marketplaces in, for example, Jerusalem and Gaza.

Do most of Gaza’s residents live in refugee camps?

The short answer is no. Of the 1,275,000 residents of the Gaza Strip, the UN considers 961,645 to be refugees, but of these only 471,555 live in refugee camps.

And the article continues on. I think you understand what I am presenting to you. They don’t want to move out of the refugee camps because the Palestinian authorities, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest of the world that wants to see the Palestinians in this dire situation are using it as a tool to say, “We need our land back” and, “We are not going to incorporate into 124

Israel, and become an active member of society.” By the way, you don’t see that many Arabs complaining who have incorporated into Israel as active members of society. The complaints are still coming from the refugee camps because they are living in those conditions, and in their case, they can’t get out of those conditions. I mean the reports are not just a few here and there. There were many that tried to get out of the camps up to 20 years ago, actually in some cases, many of those reports came in 30 years ago. If they tried to get away from the refugee camps, they were killed to make an example of, so others would not be encouraged to remove themselves from the refugee camps or the areas that they lived—which were totally dilapidated. That keeps them angry, keeps them violently ready to explode with hatred and war. That keeps them in the position of being constantly told that they have to hate Israel. That is what happening in their schools with their children. What do you think is going to come from it? Nothing that is going to be any good, and eventually it is going to explode.

And that is what happens, it explodes. The population listed first is the Tents of Edom. They’re going to be the antagonistic group that gets the rest of the surrounding nations involved that are listed after the tents of Edom in verse 6 and 8. And in verse 8, Assyria will join with Jordan. And that is kind of interesting because, in verse 8 in Psalm 83, “Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.” That is basically the northern parts of Syria and Jordan. That is what ISIS is trying to conquer right now and pretty much what they have control of, the northern parts of Syria, and they are desperately seeking to get a foothold into Jordan to take that over.

But after this is all said and done and this war takes place, I believe the message will be received, because that is the prayer after this psalm, and the faithful remnants will come to see the light regarding who the true God is – and it isn’t allah. I believe there is going to be plenty of people that God will draw and His Spirit will be implanted in them and they will deny Islam and seek out the one true God when this war is done; and that will develop a place for them that they all can live in safety, the walls can come down. Unfortunately, they will believe their dwelling place is secure, and no longer in danger of the conflict, and that is when Gog-Magog will rise.

But until that happens, all you are seeing now is Russia’s response to their own problem, and their problem is growing. The West doesn’t talk about it, the media in the West doesn’t talk about it, hardly anything is written about it, but it is a problem the Russians have. They have a lot bigger problem with Islam than we do in this country. You cannot even compare it, even when you throw 9-11 in there. And it is a lot closer to home for them. Yes, Putin is thug. He has his own agendas, and, I wouldn’t doubt for one minute that he wants to be the main player in world events. But, they are also reacting because their problem is ever increasing on a daily basis, causing them many headaches and it is already causing them a potential war with the Ukraine. The west sees it as an “invasion”. In a sense it is, the way the world looks at it, but it is a religious war that is happening in those areas. 125

Unfortunately, too many of these Christian Science Fiction teachers don’t see it. And it is unfortunate Walid Shoebat thinks it is a “holy” crusade war. Well it is not.

I wanted to highlight other articles, but don’t have time. This country is so naive. They’re bowing down to Islam and they don’t even see it. I was reading an article about Orlando International Airport opening a special Islamic prayer room for Muslim travelers. Pictured is the signage that would tell you that this is an Islamic prayer room.

And of course, if you look at the pictures, they are going to spend over one million dollars ($250,000 on the prayer room alone) for Muslim to pray at the airport; so they don’t have to be bowing down in the middle of the airport to allah in their prayers.

So... just make them prayer rooms. This same airport doesn’t have a Buddhist meditation room. This same airport doesn’t have a Christian chapel. But now it has an Islamic prayer room to accommodate Islam. Wherever you turn, Muslims are demanding special accommodation. In New Jersey they wanted a day off, a special day off for a Muslim holy day, for everyone. They fought, they went back and forth. The school district finally said, you can have that day off, and it won’t affect anything on your attendance record for the school, because it will be your day. They weren’t satisfied with that. They are going to take advantage it, but they weren’t satisfied with that. In fact, one Muslim participant at the school board said, “We are no longer the minority. That is clear from tonight. We are going to be a majority soon.” That is their goal. They want Sharia, any form of it, to be the governing rule here in the United States.

And, there is no moderate Muslims, my friend. I mean, Islam is on the march. 126

This is the distribution in 2011 of Mosques in the USA. The darker blue areas like Illinois, Florida, Texas, New York, California, New Jersey, have 100+ mosques. It use to be New York and New Jersey had the most mosques, followed by Illinois. Now, fast forward 5 years. Which state do you think on that map has the most mosques? You would probably think California. It is in the dark blue area. But the answer is Texas. I told you they are on the march for Texas. If they get Texas—and they are becoming more and more successful—if they can get the state that claims to be a constitutional state, and a state that still professes freedom, and the way the participants of that state can exercise that freedom, then every other state will tumble. Like I said, it use to be New York and New Jersey, that combination of the states and their close proximity to each other, that had the most mosques. Most people think it was Michigan. No. They have quite a few and in Detroit they have the most dense population of Muslims and mosques, but throughout the state, if you count the mosques, it is now Texas.

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This map shows the areas where known terrorist groups are active, designated by the states in red.

Once again, as of 2015, Texas takes the lead followed by New York and then Michigan. Islam is on the move.

This country is naive concerning their mission; it is not just the Middle East. The one thing Donald Trump said, and I am not a Donald Trump fan, but the one thing he said that I agree with is the Syrian refugees might be a terrorist army in disguise. He has never been so right. And that 200 thousand figure is very low. Many of these are healthy men, strong men, that are migrating to Europe. There are not that many female participants migrating to Europe right now, mostly male. Does that make any sense to you? What is happening? Islam is on the march.

Learn how to read the times and where we are in these times, and know that the Gog-Magog War is not around the corner yet, things need to happen before that. And Psalm 83, Isaiah 17, and the Elam prophecies, all I believe, have to take place first, with one exception... maybe the Elam 128 prophecies will be included in the Gog-Magog War. I don’t think so, but that is the only exception I’ll make.

Interesting times are ahead.

Stop listening to these blowhards. I mean, how convenient. The blood moon nonsense didn’t work out, so here comes Russia down and that is the new narrative. The heat was almost taken out of these blood moon people but now they have a new narrative, “Oh, let’s look at this!” Stop being a goose in a new day, my friend. And stop falling back into this Christian Science Fiction nonsense. “Well, you haven’t taught on everything yet...” Well, I’ve taught on more than anybody has produced out there and if you only gather one thing from it, BEWARE OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FICTION NONSENSE.

To be continued...

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The Last Days Study Guide Gog and Magog Update

1. How many psalms did Asaph write?

2. Why do Palestinians live in refugee camps?

3. What does the acronym UNRWA stand for?

4. How does the UNRWA define a Palestinian refugee?

5. How does the UN definition of Palestinian refugee contradict international law? And how was a loophole created for this contradiction?

6. What are the causes for Russia’s military involvement in Syria?

7. What one unmistakable sign must occur before the Gog-Magog War?

8. How are Muslims waging civilization jihad?

9. How have Israelis attempted to help Palestinians become active citizens of Israel?

10. What is the Hebrew significance of how things are listed?

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