Books

Focus On The Fundamentals Of The Faith

By W. Douglass Harris

Is Armageddon a Literal Battle?

Armageddon mania seems to surface with every major world crisis. Religious speculators and sensationalists put on their prophetic mantles and predict the approach of their imaginary battle of Armageddon. Their misunderstood proof texts (chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel) is the basis of their prophetic and false calculation. Their scenario: Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38:2) is Russia, and Persia is Iran. Together, they and other nations will soon invade Israel and the final battle of earth will be fought in northern Palestine. The only thing that can save us from national destruction is national repentance. These scare tactics are all intended to be sensational.

What is wrong with such doomsday predictions? To express it in one word: Everything. Please read these chapters and note some statements that cannot be taken literally:

1. The invading army was to be horses and horsemen (38:4). All of them would be riding horses (38:15), if this is literal.

2. Every soldier would wield a sword (38:21). No high-tech weapons such as are used today, if taken literally.

3. The commander-in-chief, Gog, would use bows and arrows (39:3). Would this not be a retrogression in warfare, if this is literal?

4. The predominantly wooden weapons would take seven years to burn (39:9,10); no need to take any wood from the forest if it is literal.

5. It would take seven months to bury all the corpses (39:12). How could anyone survive such pestilential vapors, if this is to be understood literally?

6. The chariots would be eaten by the birds. Could this literally be possible?

7. Not all the invaders would come from the north and east as the speculators claim (38:5).

8. Israel would take the spoil rather than the invaders (39:10). This is not the usual order.

All of this shows that much of Ezekiel’s language must be interpreted symbolically. Note the two following paragraphs by Brother Gary Workman:

“Partly because of the mention of Gog and Magog in Revelation 20:8 concerning the end of the world, religious speculators have labeled Ezekiel 38 as the Russian chapter and Ezekiel 39 as their final end. But this is to take it all out of context. And in Revelation Gog and Magog is a designation for all the nations of the earth. Gog represents every evil, not some particular ruler, and Magog is every source from which that evil comes.

Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not a prophecy of the future. It was fulfilled long ago when Israel was still the people of God, as they are referred to there. They rejected their Messiah, and God in turn rejected them. There is no prophecy in scripture that has anything to do with the modern nation of Israel. And neither does God have any further plans for the land of Palestine except to destroy it with all the rest of the world when Jesus comes again.”

All of the forecasters in the past of the imminence of the battle of Armageddon have proven to be false prophets. Why should we believe the present ones? What does God say about such? “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumtuously; you shall not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:22).