Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals:
Wednesday March 4 2026
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Revelation 20:7-9-Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison. 8 and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. 9 They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.
As we noticed in our last study, there is speculation that the current war which the United States and Israel have launched against Iran is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Specifically, there are reports that some of our soldiers have been told that this war is being carried out by President Trump because he has been “anointed by Jesus” to bring about Armageddon in attacking Iran. We examined the Elam prophecy and saw that it does not sanction such a teaching. Now, we will examine another great prophecy involving Iran from the Holy Scriptures.
In the Old Testament, there is a prophecy often termed “The Magog War.” This is found in the Book of Ezekiel (chapters 38-39). There is too much material in these chapters to cover in detail here, but I investigated these chapters elsewhere if you wish to dig deeper:
In this study, we are going to consider part of the Magog war especially as it ties in with the nation of Iran.
Let’s study.
The Prophet gives both a generalized and specific timeframe of “when” this war would take place. Back in Ezekiel 37, he had described a time when the nation of Israel would be reborn. This has, of course, happened twice in history. The first restoration began when the Jewish people were led back from their Captivity in 606 B.C., under the leadership of Zerubbabel.
However, there was another restoration prophesied about by Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 4:4-6-Lie also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.
The Prophet was to lie on his side for a total of 430 days, each day representing a year that the Jews would spend in captivity for their sins. However, the captivity in Babylon only lasted for seventy years (Jeremiah 29:10), leading us to a period of 360 days/years unaccounted for.
What happens to those “missing years?”
The issue is vexing, until we factor in what Moses had written centuries earlier. The Lord told the Jewish people that if they ever went into captivity and while there still refused to repent and turn back to Him, He would multiply their captivity by a factor of seven:
Leviticus 26:18, 21, 23-24-And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins…. ‘Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins…. ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
When the command went forth for the Jews to return to the land of Israel (Ezra 1:1-4; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23), only a small number returned (under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah). The majority of Jewish people chose to stay in the land of Persia (modern day Iran, ironically), thus showing their refusal to repent. Now, God had said He would multiply the punishment of the people by a factor of seven if they refused to repent. Multiplying the remaining number of 360 years by 7 to 536 B.C. (which is when the 70 year captivity ended), we arrive at the calendar date of May 14, 1948.
“360 x 7 = 2,520 prophetic years; 2,520 x 360 = 907,220 days 907,220 days on the modern calendar is 2,483 yrs & 285 days 2,483 yrs x 365.25 = 906915; 907200 – 906915 = 285 days August 3, 537 BC + 2,483 yrs = August 3, AD 1946 Add 1 year (no 0 Year) = AD 1947; Add 285 days = May 14, AD 1948” (Ken Johnson, Th.D., Ancient Prophecies Revealed, 206 (Kindle Edition): CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform).
This was the exact day that the nation of Israel was reconstituted after the Romans destroyed Jersualem in 70 A.D. and spread them around the globe. Ezekiel the Prophet saw to the DAY when these prophecies would come to pass, and they did!
Of course, other clues from the passage in Ezekiel 38-39 indicate that this war will take place during the Christian age. Ezekiel says it will occur in “the latter years” and the “latter days,” both of which are designations for the Christian age (Acts 2:16-21; Hebrews 1:1-2):
Ezekiel 38:8-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, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.
Ezekiel 38:16-You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.”
Furthermore, the Book of Revelation shows us that this war refers to the time near the end of the world. Notice what Ezekiel describes:
Ezekiel 39:17-20- “And as for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: “Assemble yourselves and come; Gather together from all sides to My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you, A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, That you may eat flesh and drink blood. 18 You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, Drink the blood of the princes of the earth, Of rams and lambs, Of goats and bulls, All of them fatlings of Bashan. 19 You shall eat fat till you are full, And drink blood till you are drunk, At My sacrificial meal Which I am sacrificing for you. 20 You shall be filled at My table With horses and riders, With mighty men And with all the men of war,” says the Lord GOD.
John quotes this passage and ties it in with the events at the time of the Second Coming of Christ:
Revelation 19:17-18-Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, 18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.”
So, this Magog war takes place at the end of the Christian age, and specifically at a time after the nation of Israel has been reborn (which happens in 1948).
So, where is Iran in all of this?
Ezekiel 38:1-7-Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 4 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. 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you. 7 “Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them.
Iran is mentioned here under the name “Persia.” This was another ancient name for that nation. Here in Ezekiel, we are told that Iran would be a nation that would come against “Israel” near the end of the world.
So, does this mean that the events that we are seeing are an indicator of this Magog war unfolding?
There are a couple of problems with that interpretation.
First, notice that in this passage, Iran is led to attack Israel at a time when the nation of Israel is dwelling safely in their land.
Ezekiel 38:11-You will say, ‘I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates’—
The modern day nation of Israel can be called many things. However, not many would say that they are a “peaceful people” who are dwelling “safely” in a land “without walls, and having neither bars nor gates.” These descriptions are all of a country that is safe and has no fear of being attacked and invaded, which does not really describe our time.
Second, here is the big problem: the people God identifies as “Israel” and “My people” in Ezekiel 38-39 are Christians.
Ezekiel 39:27-29-When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations, 28 then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land, and left none of them captive any longer. 29 And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord GOD.”
John’s writing (Revelation 20:7-9) confirms this by describing Magog attacking the “saints” during the Christian age. Who are the “saints” in the Book of Revelation?
Revelation 14:12-Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Let me encourage you to read through every usage of the word “saints” in Revelation. When you do, you will discover that the word has reference to those who are Christians. This is in agreement with the rest of the teaching of the New Testament on the subject, and of church history!
“What many Christians don’t realize is that Dispensationalism’s view of Israel is a remarkably recent development in the history of Christian theology. For nearly eighteen centuries prior to John Nelson Darby’s systematization, every major branch of Christianity—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—understood the church as the continuation or fulfillment of Israel, not as a separate people alongside her. The early church fathers, such as Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Origen, and Cyprian, taught that Israel had been set aside because of unbelief and that the church, now grafted into Christ, inherited the promises made to Abraham by faith. The Crusaders and saints of the Middle Ages held that the Holy Land belonged not to unbelieving Jews, but to Christ and His church, the true Israel of God. The Reformers and the Puritans uniformly held that God’s covenant people were defined not by ethnicity or national lineage, but by union with Christ through faith—the one true seed of Abraham. Historically, virtually all Christians taught and believed that the church—made up of Jew and Gentile believers—is the true Israel of God. They believed promises to Abraham were not about ethnicity but about faith. Romans and Galatians both teach that those united to Christ are the real children of Abraham. The land promises, the nation promises, the covenant blessings—they all find their “yes and amen” in Christ and His body, the church.” (Dale Partridge, The Israel Delusion: Challenging Zionism and Reclaiming the Church as God’s Chosen People, 84-94 (Kindle Edition): Prescott, AZ: relearn.org)
Now, how many people in modern day Israel identify as “Christian?” According to ChatGP when I asked, “What are the statistics of Jewish Christians in Israel today,” here was the response (and corresponding website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism):
Jewish population of Israel: ~7.3 million
Jewish believers in Jesus: 15,000–30,000
Percentage of Jews in Israel who are Christians: roughly 0.2–0.4%
Since the Magog war prophesies Israel as being Christians, and since the majority of Jewish people living in modern Israel are not Christians, then it follows that the current war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran is not the Magog war.
Some suggest that this may mean that there will be a huge conversion of the Jewish people to faith in the Messiah before the Magog war. I hope that is the case! God wants everyone to be saved, Jew and Gentile (2 Peter 3:9).
And so perhaps this Magog war will be a literal war someday in which Iran and the other nations attack the state of Israel which will by then have turned to the Lord and become Christians (Acts 2:37-47).
Or perhaps the prophecy of Magog is also symbolic in that it provides a powerful reminder to every Christian (Jew and Gentile-Ephesians 2:14-16) that Satan is working through the nations of the world to attack the church of Christ in every way possible, and that we must persevere in the knowledge that the Lord is going to overcome and defeat those enemies on the Day of Judgment (if not sooner).
Whichever interpretation is correct (or perhaps some combination of the two), I believe that we can safely conclude that the current events in our country’s war against Iran are not the fulfillment of specific Bible prophecy. This does not mean, of course, that God cannot bring good out of the current conflict (as He always does-see Romans 8:28). But it does mean that those who “hijack” Bible prophecy to try and legitimize the actions of a particular administration, regime, or military action are standing on shaky ground and need to move to the solid foundation (Matthew 7:24-27).
Let’s continue to pray for our leaders, our country, our soldiers, and our enemies (1 Timothy 2:1-6). And may we always remember our Great Commission as God’s people:
Matthew 28:19-20-Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Mark 16:15-16-And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Revelation 22:17-And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Even so, come Lord Jesus! Amen.