‹ Back

Ezekiel 38:7 "Be ready and keep ready, you and all the hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them."

 

This sounds like pretty Godly advice - be ready, be on guard, in fact it is kind of the theme of the Advent season. But interestingly, these words are spoken to "Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal" against whom Ezekiel has been told to pass on the message "Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog" (Ezekiel 38:3).

 

In this prophecy against him, Gog is being told that he and his armies are to be ready, because God will, "in the latter days", inspire Gog to come up against Israel "riding on horses ... like a cloud covering the land." The reason for this is so that God can vindicate His holiness before the eyes of the nations. (Ezekiel 38:14-16). During this attack, God promises to "summon every kind of terror against Gog ... with pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with Gog" and thus, God says, "I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 38:23), "[a]nd my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more." (Ezekiel 39:7).

 

This urging for Gog to "be ready" is a setup, then. God is going to use Gog to attack Israel, but then strike him and his army down just before they reach His people. The Israelites will thus be chastened, having seen the attack coming and seeing God's undeniable hand in destroying their enemy, and Gog's hordes will be so utterly and inexplicably defeated that other nations will have no choice but to recognize the God of Israel's power. 

 

Sometimes God lets, even encourages, our enemies to "be ready" to attack us, sometimes He even allows or encourages the actual attack, as He did with Nebuchadnezzar. But we can help avoid Him having to do things like this by being ready ourselves. If the Israelites had not been profaning God's name, if they had been living in accord with the covenant, there would have been no need for God to inspire Gog against them.

 

We can and should always be ready, first for God's sake, but also because we never know when our enemies might be.