The Land of Unwalled Villages

Good afternoon, brethren. All the kids exited to the side, so I can't ask them if that's a foretaste of the virtual choir for the feast, but I can't help but wonder if the songs we just heard are also going to be the numbers that will create the virtual choir pieces. Very delightful. I enjoy on a Friday evening, sometimes just going on YouTube and listening to the past virtual choir pieces that were produced starting with the COVID period, and then some of them continued on after that.

Some absolutely beautiful selections. Well, I think autumn's arrived. I had to refinish my front deck, and the solution I was using said, do not apply if it's going to be under 50 degrees within 24 hours. And I told my wife, I said, it's this week, meaning last week, or forget it until spring because the forecast says 45, 49, 48, 46, and I said the days of 50-degree evenings consistently are done.

Feast is on the doorstep, and we're at the transition stage. At the beginning of September, I had an email conversation with a Portland member about a particular prophetic scripture, and it resulted in today's sermon. The timing was ideal. As we talked back and forth, the person said, maybe you could give that as a sermon.

And I wrote back, I said, well, I have a sermon in three weeks. I'll plug it in. Let me share with you the gist of our exchange, just a couple of snippets so you understand the nature of our conversation. It goes, hi, Mr. Dick. Many years ago, you'd given a sermon in which you mentioned that there is a scripture supporting, that there's a rebellion in the early part of the millennium. Would you be so kind as to share where those scriptures are that speak to this early rebellion?

I remember my thoughts when you were speaking of this uprising, and I thought, no, this cannot be correct. So many of us think of the coming kingdom of God as all peace and flowers until Satan is loosed. So that was the—those were snippets from three exchanges that we had, but it gave you the spirit of our dialogue. And as I look back over, I thought, okay, I've spoken on that, but I think I've spoken on that more in an opening Feast of Tabernacles message.

And sure enough, I can fully understand why the correspondent really was not as thoroughly versed, because I've only spoken on that, I think, twice, both on the Day of Atonement in 2003 and 2011. And looking back at my notes, I don't think I even referenced the scriptural location. I just simply mentioned it, but I didn't say, would you turn to this area and let's walk through it.

So in fairness, there wasn't a lot for them to go on. So now on the doorstep of the Day of Trumpets, we're sliding right into the most prophetically intense period of the year. It's a time, I think, where the message is quite appropriate. And I will start with an overview of end-time prophecy, a very brief overview. I don't need to belabor it, wade through it, but I do need to go through a very brief overview of end-time prophecy, which will then provide the necessary lead-in to the topic, the land of unwalled villages.

End-time prophecy can be looked at as triparte in nature. There are three periods of time in end-time prophecy that are intense, extensive coverage in the prophets, in fact, even allusions back in the books of the law and later on in the words of Christ, and after that, the book of Revelation, and even the writings of Paul and Peter. The first of the tripart division are the prophecies that lead up to the Day of the Lord. There's a whole package of scriptures that are all moving society forward toward the Day of the Lord. Everyone, in fact, some of these are so iconic that the entirety of society is familiar with the terms and have applied it to everything imaginable.

But the famous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Revelation's descriptor of end-time times of great distress, the appearance of the beast, and the false prophet of Revelation, the ongoing, virtually never-ending warning from God that begins all the way back in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and saturates the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the captivity of the peoples of the nations of modern-day Israel, and as an as an added element or as an element that that intertwines with this the Great Tribulation. So as we talk about any of those, the Four Horsemen, the Great Tribulation, the beast, the false prophet, the captivity, those are all a part of the first of what I would call the three divisions of end-time prophecy.

The second is the day of the Lord. Come the day of trumpets, we are fully into the day of the Lord. The trumpet plagues of Revelation, trumpet 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, the return of Jesus Christ on the seventh trump, the resurrection of the saints on the seventh trump, the pouring out of the seven last plagues in the presence of Jesus Christ, and the Battle of Armageddon, Christ's primary battle with the beast powers.

The third, though, is that period of prophecy that transitions into the millennium, the return from captivity. I've mulled over the years about why this is the least expounded portion of end-time prophecy, and I think the comment made by the correspondent fits very well, because by time we have finished trumpets and atonement, we are ready for peace and happiness and flowers and the end of war and all the rest. And it isn't normally covered.

Where are you going to cover it? You finish atonement, you finish atonement, now you're off to the Feast of Tabernacles, and this is a time of joy and rejoicing. But in that transitional period, it is interesting that as prophecy transitions from the end of the events that are part of the day of the Lord into the beginning of the millennium, that that transition mirrors, in a startling way, Israel's departure from Egypt.

It's interesting how God reserves certain things and says, we're going to do a repeat.

We're going to do a repeat. The return from captivity is described in Jeremiah 16, and it's interesting what it is contrasted with. If you would turn with me to Jeremiah 16.

How will the return from captivity be viewed during the millennium? Jeremiah 16 gives the answer. In Jeremiah 16, beginning in verse 14, it says, Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. But, The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands where He has driven them, for I will bring them back into their land, which I have given their fathers.

The day is coming where people will no longer look back at the Exodus and say, That was an absolutely phenomenal event. Now, the Exodus out of Egypt will be of such diminished value in comparison to the return of captives from everywhere on the face of this earth. Jeremiah said, Nobody is even going to bother talking about the Exodus anymore. They will talk about the return from captivity.

Sifting.

I'd like you to turn back to Jeremiah chapter 30, not too far from there.

Every year in the spring, if you do a study of Israel's departure from Egypt, you will eventually, in the chronology, reach the place where God says, everything is melted down to the place in Egyptian society that is time for you to leave, but before you leave, spoil the nation.

Old King James terminology. New King James, if you were looking up it, would be plunder.

And the children of Israel go from household to household with their basket and say, divvy up.

One place that says that when you leave Egypt, I'm going to see that you leave having been paid for all the free labor you have done during the time that you have been doing forced labor in Egypt. So, Israel did not go out impoverished. They went out rich in livestock. They went out rich in gold and silver. When you look at the time of the building of the tabernacle and the request for contributions, the contributions were absolutely phenomenal in the building of the tabernacle. Where did slave people get that money? They spoiled Egypt. Jeremiah chapter 30, looking forward to the time of the return from captivity of the modern nations of Israel, says in just one very simple statement in Jeremiah chapter 30 and in verse 16, Therefore, as those who devour you shall be devoured, and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity. Those who plunder you shall become plunder, and all who prey upon you I will make a pray.

Just as when Israel left Egypt with a high hand and well remunerated for their services, those who come back from captivity will spoil the captors. You know, it's an interesting, if you enjoy movies, the monuments men and women in gold are are two mid-20-teens, I think 2015-2016 in there, about recovering the plunder of the Nazis in the terms of the art that they stole and pillaged. Germany made itself absolutely phenomenally rich, or the Nazi party made itself phenomenally filthy rich by the plunder of priceless objects of art. And to this very day, they are still fighting court cases to return. 70 years later, they are still having court cases on the return to the original owners, pieces of art and artifacts worth millions and millions of dollars from places where they have been kept as plunder. And so we're going to see that the exodus of modern time will dwarf the old exodus to the place that the old one will be forgotten, and the plunder that Israel did to Egypt, those returning from captivity, will do to all their captors. We sang a song this morning, and as we sang it, I smiled inside myself at the refrain, and I thought, it's very easy to sing songs. It's harder to think through the lyrics.

The lyrics of the one particular song on every single chorus referred to those who offend.

And that they will not return.

And so the whole hymn was dealing with leading up to the millennium.

None who shall offend, they won't be there. In Exodus chapter 20, the millennial picture of Israel is not sunshine, roses, peace, humility, joy, and gladness, for no good reason. It's there because God is not going to allow anything but. In Ezekiel chapter 20, beginning in verse 33, speaking of the time yet ahead of us when the captives return, it says, and it couldn't start with any more powerful words, as I live, says the Lord God.

There is no oath in all the universe as powerful as God Himself, saying, as I live.

As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead my case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded my case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead my case with you, says the Lord God.

God is going to plead His case with those returning from captivity.

And in the next few years, as we will see very clearly, the result of that pleading.

As someone who enjoys using a commentary as a tool to enhance understanding, I'm always fascinated—there aren't very many of them—but I'm always fascinated by the two or three odd commentaries that actually believe in Jesus Christ returning to rule on this earth.

If you read commentaries insightfully enough, you will realize that there are some commentators that share our belief in the second coming of Jesus Christ and end-time prophecy.

One of those commentaries is the pulpit commentary. And the pulpit commentary, along with—and I believe it's either James and Fawcett—I think James and Fawcett and Brown falls in this same category—that you can get into millennial scriptures, and they will say, these scriptures have never been fulfilled. The skeptic and the liberal will find some way to have that take place somewhere back in history. All done, all finished, nothing of any relevance any longer. These will look at it squarely and say, this has never happened. Therefore, it is yet future. Pulpit commentary makes this comment about the verses I just read you. The prophet's words seem to look beyond the horizon of any fulfillment as yet seen in history.

He contemplates not a return straight from Babylon to Jerusalem. This is written by Ezekiel, and so the commentator realizes Ezekiel's in Babylon, and it's already been prophesied that they will return from Babylon to Jerusalem. He said, he contemplates not a return straight from Babylon to Jerusalem, but a gathering from all the countries in which they have been scattered.

When gathered, the whole nation is to be brought into the wilderness of the peoples. This was to be to them what the wilderness of Sinai had been in the time of the Exodus. There, Jehovah would plead with them face to face in the first instance as an accuser.

Now, let's read the verses that follow. Verse 37, I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of covenant. A shepherd passing his sheep under the rod is sorting. The ones I keep, the ones I sell, the ones I reserve for breeding, the ones that I shunt over to be sold for me. He says, I'm going to pass you under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of covenant, and I will purge the rebels from among you. This is after coming out of captivity, and those who transgress against me, I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel, that you will know that I am the Lord. There won't be any rebels coming back in captivity. There won't be any who have not been humbled. There will not be any that are not willing to rejoice at the salvation that God has given them physically, and as He pours His Spirit on them, to begin to grasp the salvation that He will pour upon them spiritually. The pulpit makes the comment about the verses I just read you. The thought of the shepherd suggests the separation of the sheep from the goats. The land of the restored Israel was to be a land of righteousness, and the rebels were not to enter into it. Was Ezekiel thinking of those who were thus to die in the wilderness of the peoples as the counterpart of those who perished in the 40 years in the wilderness and did not enter Canaan?

Verse 36 seems to imply that he was looking for a repetition of that history. The transition into the millennium is a transition that leads to the vision of the lion and the lamb, swords to plow shares, nations coming up to Jerusalem to be taught of God. But it isn't a fairy story. It doesn't begin with the waving of a wand and the tinkling of music and stardust, and all of a sudden everybody is different. Humans are humans. The transition is a human transition. With these three steps, God mirrors what happened when Israel came out of Egypt. Now what? There's no specific timeline for how things will progress at the beginning of the millennium. We have snippets. We also have history as a teacher. When you look at people coming back to a land that is devastated, reality is reality. When you come into a land that is devastated, there's a job to be done. I remember as a 19-year-old college student standing in the church's German office in Düsseldorf, Germany. The office was in an office building on either the second or the third floor, right at a major intersection in the heart of the city. And on the wall, to the side of the window, was a picture of Düsseldorf at the surrender of Germany at the end of World War II. Looking out over the whole expanse of Düsseldorf, there was one building standing. The entire city was flattened.

In talking to the Germans, they said one of the first jobs the Allies had to do was bring in bulldozers to clear one road through the city of Düsseldorf because there was nothing passable.

By 1963, when I went standing in Düsseldorf, it was a modern city, constructed of the late 50s and early 60s, and there was nothing there that indicated that there had ever been the trauma and the horror of war. Israel is going to have to go through the same thing.

How long is it going to take God to gather the scattered from the four corners of the earth? Then all of a sudden, going to sprout wings and all fly, he says, I'm not going to lose a one. There's not one single solitary person that I'm going to bring back that I will not bring back, but they'll be everywhere.

Conservatively, it takes a few months, doesn't it, to get everybody back. How long to clean up the rubble?

It'd be interesting to sit down sometime to some of the History Channel material and watch the footage of Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Dresden, and to see what it was like as the Allied powers did one of the most beneficent and generous acts in modern history of turning around to take a dreaded enemy and rebuilding them at the cost of billions of dollars.

But you don't clear those things out overnight.

Months? Months? You'd have to be phenomenally fast to clear out leveled cities in just months.

But let's say they're super fast, and within a year's time they're back to buildable land. You can read Ezekiel 40 to the end of the book. You see tribal allocations where you're going to be, where you're going to be, where you're going to be. You have an entire architectural layout for the city of Jerusalem. Allocating land, beginning to build permanent homes, and to prepare land for cultivation will take a few years. So just the simple mechanics of transitioning is not overnight. A few years, to say the least. We have a tendency to quote Zachariah chapter 14, and since we do quote it, I think it's fitting to turn back there very briefly. I'm not going to spend any time there, but it's a verse we're all familiar with. Zachariah 14, a millennial scripture, in verse 16, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came up against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

For those of you that have been in the church for several years, you've heard this several times. But notice the definer, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came up against Jerusalem. Not every nation came up against Jerusalem. The vanguard was the Beast Powers. There were opportunists that joined the Beast Powers, but it wasn't a worldwide army. So those who did the assault, they're on the shortlist. The assault is over. Now, you need to start coming up to the Feast of Tabernacles. But there are billions of people currently on this earth. They're not listed among the people who come up against Jerusalem. They were not listed among the people who come up against Jerusalem. They will eventually all come to the Feast of Tabernacles.

But that may take time.

God is a grand finale to close the rebellion at the beginning of the millennium, and to make a final statement to all people. God is going to call Gog and Magog to come up and attempt to destroy the Millennial Israel. Oh, it's brand new!

Brand spanking new shiny prosperous, and He's going to invite them up to destroy it.

And He's going to invite them up to make a statement.

That's what we're going to talk about for the remainder of the sermon. But before we do so, I want you to turn to Revelation 20.

And I want you to turn to Revelation 20, because what we are far, far more familiar with is a time at the end of the millennium where Satan is loosed for a brief period of time, and gathers Gog and Magog from the four corners of the earth and comes up against Jerusalem. And it describes it in verses 7 through 9.

Well, we're about to read in Ezekiel, starting in Ezekiel 37, verse 15, and sometimes confused for what I just read you in Revelation 20.

Revelation 20 is an event precipitated by Satan himself. Upon his being loosed, he then marshals. The event in Ezekiel 37 through 39 is precipitated by God.

And Satan is not so much as mentioned anywhere in the in the Describer.

As we go along, I will note those indicators in Ezekiel 37, beginning in verse 12, to the end of chapter 39, that are those kinds of markers that tell you where you are in time.

And as you will see, those markers make it very clear that you're not earlier than the beginning of the millennium, and you're not later than the beginning of the millennium.

So let's go to Ezekiel 37, verse 12, and begin to look at the land of unwalled villages.

This portion of Ezekiel is chronological. In fact, it's chronological all the way up to chapter 40, and from chapter 40 onward, it's all pure introductory years of the millennium.

Ezekiel 37, let's begin.

We'll begin with some of those markers that I said identify for you very clearly where we are. Ezekiel 37, beginning in verse 15.

Again, the word of the Lord came to me saying, as for you, Son of Man, take a stick for yourself and write on it for Judah, and for the children of Israel, his companions. So we all know that when the time came that there was a civil war, and Israel divided into northern and southern kingdom, that Judah went one way with its companion nations, and Israel went the other way with its companion nations. So one stick is for Judah, and those who accompanied Judah. Then take another stick and write on it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions. So here we have two sticks that represent the two kingdoms that were formed following the death of Solomon.

He says, Join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in my hand. Now, we're already, without going any further, and we will go further, we're already at a point that has never happened in all of history. Israel went captive. Israel never returned.

I have in my library a multiple-volume set by Millman, a historian, and one of the sets is the history of the Jews. The animosity between Israel and Judah has existed through all of history and still exists. Even in the nations that are kindest and most brotherly to Judah, there is and has always been that element of anti-Semitism. And so for God to say, I'm going to take these two sticks and put them together, and they are going to be one, is something that has never happened. The anti-Semitism that we see today is very mild, comparing to what has existed in most of human history, even among the nations of Israel. Verse 18 says, And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, would you not show us what you mean by this? You took two sticks, and you said, this stick is Judah, this stick is Israel, and you put them together, and you made one stick. And what is that all about? Say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions, and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand, and the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before your eyes. Then say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Surely I will take the children of Israel, from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side, and bring them into their own land. That's never happened. You know, those who see the prophecies about Judah's return from captivity that are really conversant with history realize that it was a minority that returned to Judah. The majority stayed in Babylon. And under Ezra and Nehemiah, Israel probably never had a Jewish population from that time forward as large as the dispersion, the diaspora.

We used to say, and I haven't updated in the last 15 years or so, but we used to say, all during the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the beginning of the 2000s, that there were more Jews in New York City than there were in the state of Israel. Now, I would expect that's not true anymore, but I don't know. So to bring everybody, not just the Jews, you know, you haven't even had all of Judah in that land, let alone Israel and Judah combined. But God says, I'm going to combine them and I'm going to bring all of them. Israel's never been a debate, except among the most liberal of theologians and skeptics, Israel didn't return from captivity. Hence, they're named the lost 10 tribes. In verse 22, He says, I'll make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all. They shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. Never happened. But all of this is pointing to a point of origin, isn't it? So in terms of time frame, what is the way it's written telling us? The time frame is focused on a time when this happens, not a thousand years after it happens. It's talking about something that's moving toward an event, and that event is the focal point, and that will take place at the beginning of the millennium. It says, they shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any other transgressions, but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned. I will cleanse them, and then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. You never hear God speaking of Israel and Judah physically as being my people and me being their God until the millennium.

Wish for it. Look forward to it. Never been. It's never been. The permanent uniting of all the tribes and the removal of animosity between Judah and Israel takes place at the beginning of the millennium when God brings them all, regardless of which house they were previously from, all back to one place. And he says, you'll never be divided again. They've never been united again, let alone had an opportunity to divide again. The next statement makes it so unarguably clear as to when it is, because beginning in verse 24 through 28, the remainder of this chapter, it says, David, my servant, shall be king over them. Well, you know, you start the New Testament, and one of the apostles says, David is dead and buried, and his tomb is with us.

Christ comes to the earth, begins his ministry. There's no David. David is dead. David is buried, and he stays dead and buried until the day of trumpets. But David is going to be the king over what we've just been describing. Well, it's very obvious when that's going to be, isn't it? David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob, my servant, where your fathers dwelt. And they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children's children forever. And so we're back to the land of Palestine, the modern state, physical state of Israel. And he says, that's where we're going to bring them back to, and they're going to stay there from that time onward. No interruption.

And my servant David shall be their prince forever. You know, there's a very interesting nuance between the two verses that I read, because it starts by saying David will be their king, and it ends by saying David will be their prince. Anyone familiar with empires understands the simple fact that in one empire there can be one emperor, but there can be many kings under that emperor. The king of kings will be Jesus Christ. Demoting David to that of a prince is simply acknowledging that there is somebody living there at that time, at this point not a rest directly. David isn't demoted in terms of stature or rank. It's simply the acknowledgement that even though he is your Israelites king, there is a greater king residing with you, whose power is greater than David's. All of what we've read so far, are every single element is millennial in nature, returned from captivity, union of peoples who have never been united, staying in one place forever, describing people who have gone far and wide and scattered across every part of this planet. Very, very different picture.

That brings us to Ezekiel chapter 38.

Ezekiel 38 says, Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog.

That's where your primary focus is. Set your face against Gog and against the Prince of Rosh and against Meshach and against Tubal, and prophesy against him. Prophesy against Gog and the auxiliaries. And say, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal. And so Gog is the focal point. The others are definitely part of the picture. But Gog is addressed first and consistently first.

He says, I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Oh, and I will add Persia and Ethiopia and Libya, all with them. Oh, excuse me, Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shields and helmets. Oh, and I'm going to add Gomer and all his troops in the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops. Many people are with you.

So God says, He started out by saying, I'm going to put a hook in your jaw.

And it's a brutal, ancient captor picture that is the human equivalent of when you put a nose ring in a bull, and he may weigh a ton, but you lead him with a rope, and he follows. And God says, I'm going to put a hook in your jaw, and you're going to come where I want you to come.

And it's going to be all of you with Gog at the front of the parade.

Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companions that are gathered about you and be on guard for them. Now, who are these people?

This is not said with a globe in hand and looking at the borders that are marked on each country, but historically within the church, as we look at these bodies of people, we have not been ambivalent about their general locations.

He starts out by describing Gog, Magog, Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal.

Rosh, name didn't even change that much, is Russia. Tubal, if you leave Moscow and head into Siberia, you get into Tubalsk, one of the major cities on the western end of the Siberian area. The people being described here are the people of Russia, primarily.

Gog and Magog. Gog is synonymous with China, portions of Korea, Mongolia, Persia, Libya, Ethiopia. Persia has always been Persia. Today, nobody wonders where Persia is. It's Iran. Ethiopia has been Ethiopia forever, and Libya also. So Libya, you don't have to look around and say, where's Libya? Where's Ethiopia? And you don't have to ask, where's Persia? Because, like I said, the modern Iranians will put their fingers in lapel, and we are the modern descendants of the Persian Empire.

Then it goes on from there to Gomer, Togarmah. And Togarmah is described as being in the far north.

Eastern Siberia and portions of Korea constitute modern Togarmah. And Gomer, just visualize a crescent that runs the entirety of the perimeter on the eastern side of Asia.

Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, all of that outer rim on the outside of Eastern Asia is Gomer. And he said, I'm inviting all of you to come to a battle.

Now, you know, from the time of Daniel, as he began looking at the beast, the focus has always been in the Middle East to Central Europe. When Revelation started, the focus, state, fundamentally European, the beast power and its resurrections over and over again, have been Southern Central Europe. These people have been able to sit back during an awful lot of history with their arms folded, saying, it's not our fight. It's not our fight. We're not in it. We're not interested. China remained so isolated that it said there's nothing we can learn from anybody. We already know it all. Why would we need to consult with anyone else? They were as isolationist as isolationist could be, and very proud of it.

But God says, I'm going to put a hook in your jaw. And those of you that have been on the outside watching everything that's gone on with the beast and Armageddon and the war against us, it's your turn. It's your turn.

Verse 8, after many days you will be visited in the latter years. You will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel.

Again, time frame, very simple. You're going to look at people who've been gathered, and here they are. They're gathered now. You're going to look at a land which is described as having long been desolate. You can't put that at the end of the millennium. You've had a thousand years where nothing's been desolate. It's like us sitting and having a conversation about how nice it was to live at Plymouth Rock. Not relevant today, part of history. Not relevant to you, not relevant to me. Jamestown, I've been there as a museum. Yorktown, I've been there as a museum. Those are not relevant to where we are today. So I'm going to bring you against a land that were brought back from the sword, gathered from many peoples, and put in a land that had been desolate. And they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.

You don't use that kind of terminology, and they now dwell safely a thousand years after there have been no swords and no military weapons. How long does it take after a status quo starts before you stop referencing the start point? Not a thousand years, by any means. He said, you will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many people with you.

Thus says the Lord God, on that day it shall come to pass, that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan. You will say, I will go up against a land of unwalled villages. At the end of the millennium, will there be any walled villages?

There are no wild animals to hurt you. You don't need walls for that reason. There is no war.

You don't need that reason. The Prince of Peace has been ruling for 10 centuries, but it's novel. It's novel at the beginning of the millennium to find a land where there are no defenses. No radar, no walls, no perimeters. And they'll look from the east and they'll say, what a plumb! I will go up against the land of unwalled villages, and I will go to a peaceful people who dwell safely. So no walls, they're living in peace, and they feel safe.

And they have neither bars nor gates. And I'm going, as verse 12 says, to take plunder, and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people gathered from the nations who have acquired livestock and goods who dwelled in the midst of the land. They see what everybody brought back from captivity. They see the results of that statement I read to you from Jeremiah, that you will plunder those who plundered you.

When you come back, you will come back with goods. And they say, there are the goods, and there's no protection. No bars, no gates, no army, no nothing.

Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your armies to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, and to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder? The commentaries are uncertain. They like to have the left side and the right side and debate over the conversation by Sheba, Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish. Some of them say they have been humbled enough because of their proximity to Israel that they're shocked that somebody would be brazen and bold enough to attempt it.

And the other side says, no, no, no, they're sitting there saying, can we have some of it too?

Since you're going to come in and do all the dirty work, can we be like the crows that stand around the edge and get the pickings? It doesn't really matter, does it? It's one of those things that's incidental to the whole conversation and makes hardly any difference at all. Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, and this time it's singular.

It started out by saying, I'm going to put a hook in the jaw of, first of all, Gog, and then his companions, Rosh, Tubal, and Meshach. And then I'm going to invite Togarmah, and Gomer, and Persia, and Ethiopia, and Libya, and I'm going to say, come on down.

You've got a ripe plum here. Do you want to try to pick it?

Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, now we're looking at China. Thus says the Lord God, on that day when my people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?

Will you not know it?

Then you will come from your place out of the far north, and it all starts up eastern Siberia and works its way all the way down to above Australia. You and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company, and a mighty army, and you will come up against my people Israel like a cloud to cover the land.

It will be in the latter days.

So we have that marker that says, you can't go back in history and look for this, because it wasn't back in history. As I said, the markers do not allow you to go backward in time, and they're clear enough that its application is not forward in time.

It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against my land so that the nations may know me.

Now, this is why it's being done. I'm bringing you against them so that the nations may know me.

It can be the end of the millennium. Every year at the feast, somebody reads the Scripture, says, the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the water fills the sea. That's an early millennial Scripture.

You're not going to have to wait another 900 and some years for some people to get to the place that they actually know who you are. That'll be universal. But I'm going to bring you against my land so that the nations may know me when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.

So again, as I said, the focal point when he talks to them, he says, I'm inviting all of these.

But when I come down to addressing one of you as representative of the whole, I continue to set my eyes on Gog.

This is China's last great stand, and all that they can marshal to accompany them.

The sum of this is very simple. Verse 17, And thus says the Lord God, Are ye, are you, he whom I have spoken in former days by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I will bring you against them? They will come to pass at the same time when Gog comes against the land of Israel, says the Lord God, that my fury will show in my face.

You can read the rest of this chapter. And in God's fury, he brings about natural disasters and catastrophes that have all the looks and all the feel of what we see in the signs between the tribulation and the day of the Lord, and during the day of the Lord. But just one more time where God will say, you're going to see who I am, and I'm going to show you natural wonders that will absolutely blow your mind. And as he ends this chapter, he says, Thus, by all of this, I will magnify myself and sanctify myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations.

Then they shall know that I am the Lord. All of this is done for one reason.

You're talking about a portion of the world that has never been Christian.

The battles that are fought between the beast are battles between people who all have one thing primarily in common, and that is a belief in the God of Abraham.

As you run the Eastern perimeter and all the religions that are part of that, there is not one iota of recognition of that God. And God says, I'm going to magnify myself.

I'm going to show you that all your gods are not gods. There is only one God, and I will sanctify myself. Sanctify simply means to set apart. I'm going to set myself apart so that there is nothing that you worship, nothing you have seen as a God, that will even so much as be worthy to sit in my company. I have set myself apart by what I'm doing right here.

I really don't need to read to you the 39th chapter, because the 39th chapter is simply about the physical mechanics. I'll read you the end of it, but it's simply about the physical mechanics. They come up. God destroys them. It takes Israel seven months to bury all the bodies.

They send crews out to put markers when there's a bone, so somebody can pick up the bone and bury it. You know, when you study the history of war, the quartermastering element in war is phenomenal. When you have an army that's large, the logistics of making sure they're fed, they're housed, they have ammunition, all of that's behind the battle line. But that is a phenomenal exercise. It says Israel will not have to worry about any fuel of any sort for seven solid years.

It'll take that long to use up what the quartermasters brought to support the invading army.

So that's basically what chapter 39 is about. Again, it's an interesting read, but it's the mechanical read. You're going to come. I'm going to destroy you. Israel will spend seven months burying your remains, and for the next seven years, they will simply repurpose all the stuff that you brought down to use as war materials against them.

When you get down to the very end of this chapter, it brings you right back to the verse we just read, verse 23. It's where God says, I'm doing all of this as the last move that I make to bring the entirety of the world to the place that they know that I am the one single God of the universe.

So as you come to the very end of chapter 39, verse 25, therefore, thus says the Lord God, Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name, after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to me, when they dwell safely in their own land, and no one makes them afraid. When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' land, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of every nation, then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their own land, and left none of them captive any longer.

And I will not hide my face from them any more, for I shall have poured out my spirit on the house of Israel, says the Lord God. The icing on the cake. All the things that he repeats over and over again are the beginning of the millennium. But he ends by saying, and I will also pour my spirit out on them, something reserved for the time of the millennium. As my correspondence said in their email, so many of us think of the coming kingdom of God as all peace and flowers until Satan is loosed, but not so. Quite true. Not so. The coming of the kingdom of God will eventually be all the peace and flowers that we're looking for, as the writer phrased it. But to get to that land of peace and flowers, we're first of all going to have to travel through the land of unwalled villages.