to all,

I would like to hear some feed back on a possible near time scenerio i have been studying...If Syria attacks Israel over the golans...(using missles and attempting a hizbullah like victory). My theory here is Syria thinks Israel is weak now both in trainning military and leadership. If hizbullah can pull off an upset, the entire syrian army and missles should be able to extract a concession from Israel to withdraw from the golan heights.

Isreal responds with what the world would consider excessive force....Olmert, in an attempt to show that he is strong and tuff, bombs damascus (isiah 17)....this is the hook in Gogs jaw...Iran must now come to the aid of its treaty of defense partner...the UN passes a resolution condeming Israel and iran invades or tries to.

I think there is a good chance syria starts something may 14/june 6th...one of the anniversary dates....that allows the gog invasion to come during Tammuz/av 9th (the arabs know these are calamity dates for israel). God has promised devestation before the grape harvest which is august ....scripture also promises that the birds will summer and the beast winter on the dead bodies of magog...the dead are buried for 7 months...if you look at a calendar-late july is 9th of Av this yr, during summer and before grape harvest. The next 7 months aug, sept, oct, nov, dec, jan feb-take us thru winter and at the cusp of Purim 08...(08 is special because it has 2 adar months-hence 2 purims and ofcourse there is a eclipse on purim 80 which falls on the spring equinox....

thoughts????????????????

just a thought...wouldn't part of the stratgery out of Syria would be to distract America first, so that when the USA is focused on some other crisis, then attack Israel? There have been increase in terrorist threats againist US interests in the news recently...maybe part of the plan?

Duncdrewnoah,

Interesting analysis.

However, if you hold to the seven year tribulation model, with the 3-1/2 years in to it revealing of THE antichrist, with Israel being deceived by him into believing he is their "Messiah," as well as him later persecuting Israel, then the above sequence of Gog/Magog events cannot take place before, or during the beginning period of the tribulation. If it is correct, these events must take place at the end of the tribulation. This is due to at least a couple of verses in Ezekiel that mentions God's attitude and response toward Israel during and after the God/Magog conflict.

The verses are these:

Ezekiel 39:
22 So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.

Ezekiel 39:
28 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.
29 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.

The Ezekiel 38-39 passages do not show that Gog/Magog is IN ANY WAY victorious in the least, rather, God's "fury" wells up in him so that he destroys them, leaving only one-sixth of the would-be invaders left to go home. (Ezek. 38:18, Ezek. 39:2)

The two Ezek. 39 passages are pretty clear that God actively blesses Israel with his Spirit to call them to himself. I've had some to deny the effectiveness of God's Spirit by saying that after this, Satan is still able to deceive them into believing in the antichrist. There's no latitude given in these passages for Israel to follow anyone but God by Jesus Christ, since the Spirit glorifies Jesus.

Anyway, it's all in the timing. It doesn't appear that Gog/Magog kicks off the tribulation, although the destruction of Damascus may fall near the beginning.

Well...there's a few of my thoughts on the scripture passages mentioned.

In Christ,

Mike