New World Society Attacked from the Far North
“Say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In that day when my people Israel dwelleth securely, shalt thou not know it? And thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north.”—Ezek. 38:14, 15, AS.
THE time gets nearer when all nations will witness a demonstration of power such as mankind has never witnessed in all its thousands of years of existence. It will be a sudden manifestation of overwhelming power from behind an outward appearance of weakness. Although meeting the combined strength of the nations when at its maximum, it will put them to everlasting shame and contempt. The more marvelous it will be because it will be in behalf of those who are apparently helpless and who have no physical might against those nations, when these attack them. It will expose a mighty foe who long has gone under a mystical name and whose identity was therefore a mystery. It will be a display of the devastating power of the only one able to cope with this foe and will win eternal glory for his name. It will exalt him to the highest in the estimation of all who are privileged to live through this awesome exhibition of divine power. It will have a lasting effect in behalf of the righteous, peaceful world for life in which a New World society is now being formed on earth. Shortly this society may expect to be the object of the attack by this terrible foe, but also to be witnesses to his defeat by their invincible God and to survive into the blessed new world.
2 If an attack upon a peaceable, inoffensive, benevolent society was so important as to be foretold over two thousand five hundred years ago, it is more important for us to consider the attack now when it is about to be made. The attacker was foretold under the name of Gog.a It was Jehovah God who tagged this violent attacker with this cryptic name. Ever since, Bible students have puzzled over the application of the name. Now that the time has approached for us either to stand up against the attack as a member of the New World society or else to become enmeshed in the organization of attack, it is advisable for us to examine the features of this foe and identify who it is, while we look to the Giver and Interpreter of prophecy for guidance to the identification. It is really the obligation of the New World society to do this, because they must take up a stirring prophecy from the pages of God’s Word and pronounce it against Gog in this critical time. As it is written: “The word of the LORD [Jehovah] came to me, saying, ‘O mortal man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the great prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, “Thus says the Lord GOD [Jehovah].”’”—Ezek. 38:1-3, AT.
3 The New World society has long been associated with the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which has been interested in the subject of Gog for years and has sought to understand it. Back in 1897 the Watch Tower Society published the fourth volume of the Studies in the Scriptures, first entitled “The Day of Vengeance” and later given a change of title to “The Battle of Armageddon.” In chapter eleven this book set forth that the nation of Israel restored to the land of Palestine would be the object of Gog’s attack, and, on page 554, it said: “Israel will finally be besieged by hosts of merciless plunderers, designated by the prophet as the hosts of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38), and great will be the distress of defenceless Israel.” Over thirty years later the Bible prophecies were examined further in the light of events since A.D. 1914, to reveal that, not the Israelites according to the flesh, but the Christians who are Israelites inwardly, spiritual Israelites, are the people destined to be the target of Gog’s attack from the far north. In 1932 the Watch Tower Society published Book Two of a series entitled “Vindication.” This book took up part of Ezekiel’s prophecy and, without wanting to be dogmatic on Gog’s identity, page 311 set forth this conclusion about him: “Gog is one of the princes in Satan’s organization, invisible, of course, to human eyes, with a possibility of the power to materialize in human form. The land of Magog pictures the spiritual or invisible realm of Satan, and includes Gog and all the wicked angels within his division of Satan’s organization, and which ‘bear rule over all the earth’.” Since then twenty-one years have passed and much prophecy clarifying the Holy Scriptures has been fulfilled meantime; and is our conclusion today the same as the above? For a factual and Scriptural answer the following article should be read.
[Footnotes]
a “Some connect the name with the Sumerian designation for Darkness (gug). For Ezekiel Gog is the king out of the north, where the feared Scythians live, a symbolic name for mighty enemies.”—Bibel-Lexikon (German), Haag.