Who
Will the Post-Millenium
Trouble Makers
Be?
Both Revelation
20 and Ezekiel 38 agree that the post-millenium rebels will be a group of folks called "Gog" and "Magog"(after their
respective millenium-nationalities/geneologies), who according to Biblical geneology are descendents of Japheth (son of Noah--Genesis
10:2, 1 Chronicles 1:5 ).
These people will
come from the "North" of Israel (Persia, Ethiopia and Libya will join with them to gang up on Israel).
Gomer and Togarmah
(descendents of the grandsons of Noah--Genesis 10:2-3) will also join in (Ezekiel 38:1-7).
Ezekiel
38:8 makes an interesting comment--"after many days thou shalt be visited"
... by whom?
I believe this
verse in Ezekiel is referring to the same thing the verses in Revelation 20:7-8 are talking about.
Satan
is loosed from his prison and makes a visit...
To guess who?
Gog
and Magog!
Yep, they seem
to be his good buddies.
Then, without
warning, we see a shift in the time frame between the last verse of Ezekiel 38 (post-millenial time frame) and the first
verse of Ezekiel 39 (39:1-4 dealing with the battle of Armageddon--which culminates the Great Tribulation period).
The entire chapter
of Ezekiel 38 is dealing with the post-millenial final rebellion (both Revelation 20:7-10 and Ezekiel 38 are speaking
of the same event--Ezekiel just gives more details).
In Ezekiel 39:1-4,
however, the prophet back-tracks to the battle of Armageddon (Bible prophecy does that--there is often a back and forth
"free flow" shift between time periods with absolutely no warning that the shift has occurred).
We know Ezekiel
39:1-4 is talking about Armageddon, because in verse four, we see the ravenous birds described in Revelation 19.
There isn't going
to be a post-battle clean-up at the end of the millenium (final rebellion)--at that time, God is going to both destroy
and restore the earth by fire (2 Peter 3:7,12-13).
The righteous
millenial population will somehow survive the fiery purge (Isaiah 24:6, 10:16-19) and will go on to inhabit the New Earth.
Ezekiel 39:1 begins
with the word "therefore" (which means, "because of this").
Because of what?
Well, look just
prior to the "therefore" and we will see what it is there for.
What do
we see just prior to Ezekiel 39:1-2?
We see Gog
and Magog plotting the over-throw of peaceful, millenial-Israel.
Therefore,
God is going to do some harsh dealing with them (Gog and Magog--out of necessity) just prior to the millenium.
He is going to
drastically reduce the remainder of their (tribulational) population--by about 82% (Ezekiel 39:2).
The world in general will
experience an apprioximate 80% death rate, during the seven years, before Jesus returns at Armageddon (Jesus did
say that if God didn't shorten those days, no one would survive--Matthew 24).
In addition
to that, about 82% of the remainder of Gog's population will be wiped out (Ezekiel 39:2).
So that particular
branch of the descendents of Noah will begin the millenium with a miniscule population.
Even so, by the
end of the Millenium, Gog's population (and allies) will have rebounded to the point of fielding an army that will cover
the land like a cloud (Ezekiel 38:9).
It is at the end
of this final conflict, that the day will come as an oven, and the evil doers will be as stubble, and
God will leave them without root or branch (Malachi 4:1).
