Tag Archives: October 7

The End Times & .38 Special

October 30, 2024 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

I once had a professor who was a vain know-it-all. Among the many things that he loved waxing eloquent about in his intellectual pride was the prophesies regarding the end times. Even when a class had nothing to do with the subject, he found ways to bring up the subject. I also noticed that he regularly used the occasion to hawk his recorded messages on the subject.

A number of years ago, I recalled some of the professors assured interpretations that didn’t come to fruition as he said they would. I’ve added it to a mental heap of modern-day prophets and end-times interpreters who made sure-fire predictions and interpretations that turned out to be completely wrong.

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve learned that one has to approach the prophetic with humility. The prophetic is mysterious, and I’ve observed that it’s very easy for people to get lost down the rabbit hole with the vast minions of those who’ve gotten lost in it before them. While it can certainly be an entertaining pursuit, I have never found it to be of much value from a personal, spiritual perspective.

In addition, I constantly remind myself that all of the greatest and most learned scholars and interpreters in Jesus’ day got the Messianic prophecies completely wrong. The Messiah they predicted was almost the exact opposite of who Jesus turned out to be. If all of them got it wrong, why should I expect that all of the modern scholars and interpreters have everything right when it comes to the end times?

This all came to mind today as we enter two of the most mysterious prophetic chapters in the entire Great Story. They speak of a mysterious land of Gog and Magog (Magog may simply mean “leader of Gog”). Today’s chapter speaks of Gog leading the nations in an invasion of Israel. John also references “Gog and Magog” in describing a final great battle against God led by Satan and the “kings of the earth” in Revelation 20:8. So Ezekiel 38-39 are prophetically connected to Revelation. Exactly how and what it all means? There’s a lot of different interpretations and I humbly confess I don’t know for certain.

What I do know, is that as I read today’s chapter it felt a bit like it was ripped from the headlines of the past year. My mind immediately conjured up images of the unsuspecting Kibbutzes in Israel last October 7 as I read:

“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled villages; I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people—all of them living without walls and without gates and bars. I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations, rich in livestock and goods, living at the center of the land.”

I also know that the description in today’s chapter of all the nations of the earth joining in a combined hatred of Israel seems pretty apt when you look at the current political landscape.

So, I know that there are prophecies about how this Great Story ends. I believe them to be true and that they will eventually be proven true in the course of time. This is what’s called faith. I can even share with you various interpretations and schools of thought regarding how it’s going play out and the identity of the mysterious Gog in today’s chapter. I can even muse with you about which of those interpretations are more plausible in my mind. Yet, I will also humbly admit that they could all be wrong.

So when it comes to the prophetic and the end times, I take my interpretive advice from .38 Special: “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“…the More They Stay the Same.”

October 7, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet, rejoicing with all the malice of your heart against the land of Israel,therefore I will stretch out my hand against you and give you as plunder to the nations.
Ezekiel 25:6-7 (NIV)

Sometimes on this chapter-a-day journey there are moments of synchronicity. Today is one of those days.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Hamas’ massacre in southern Israel. The horrific acts of that day included rape, the murder of infants, children, and women, decapitation, and the mutilation of the living and the dead. It was the worst terrorist act ever perpetrated against the modern state of Israel and the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

What has been fascinating to watch over the past year is not just the diminishment of the event and its atrocities but the schadenfreude and rejoicing on a grand scale. The depth and scale of anti-semitism that remains in this world has come to light.

In today’s chapter, God’s prophetic messages through Ezekiel make a clear and dramatic shift. After 24 chapters of prophetic warnings to His own people, God now turns his lens onto the surrounding nations. In Biblical numerology, seven is a number that designates “completeness” (e.g. Seven days of creation). Today’s chapter begins a series of seven prophetic messages to seven different neighbors of ancient Israel. The seventh message has seven parts to it.

The four nations mentioned in today’s chapter are Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia. All of them were longtime enemies whose lands bordered and surrounded Israel. God cries out against them because they rejoiced in Israels downfall, they refused to help refugees fleeing the Babylonian and Assyrian massacres, and used the opportunity to carry out vengeance.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but be a bit awed by the sheer irony of it. Prophecies uttered some 2,500 years ago feel eerily like they are addressing current events. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When I visited Israel, during the second intifada, I had the unique experience of having two guides. One was Jewish woman named Devorah. One was Arab man named George. They were both amazing, wonderful individuals with very different perspectives about almost everything. Despite their profound disagreements (they argued in Hebrew), they loved and respected one another. They were both followers of Jesus. In the time I spent with them, I realized that, for the two of them, Jesus’ command to love your enemies and bless those who curse you came with a lot more baggage than I will ever know. That baggage is thousands of years old, and it is still with us.

I find myself grieving the massacre of October 7th this morning, the hostages that remain to this day, and the timeless conflict from which it sprang. I have no profound answers to this historic hatred which is rooted in the depths of the Great Story. I’m simply reminded that Jesus calls me to be an agent of love, mercy, grace, peace, and truth. Not just with my allies, but also my enemies.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

No Signs Needed

February 22, 2024 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

And because of [Jesus’] words many more became believers.
John 4:41 (NIV)

For the past four months, since the heinous events of October 7, 2023, the headlines have been dominated by the intense conflict between the terrorists of Hamas and Israel. We have seen heated and sometimes violent demonstrations around the world. We have witnessed the impassioned feelings on both sides of the conflict. What many fail to understand is that the conflict between people groups in this region can be traced back thousands of years. They were as real for people in Jesus’ day as they are today.

In the first three chapters of John’s version of Jesus’ story, he has made a point of the “signs,” or miracles, that Jesus performed. He went on to describe the religious leaders for whom no “sign” was good enough as they demanded a bigger, better, more magnificent miracle, while the crowds who saw Jesus’ miracles/signs at the Temple during the Passover festival believed because of them.

For the largely Jewish audience that John was addressing when he wrote his account, today’s chapter takes a shocking twist. Jesus leaves the region near Jerusalem and heads back north to His home region of Galilee. To get from one to the other in a straight line, Jesus had to travel through a region called Samaria. This was an issue.

The people in the Samaritan region were Jews who hundreds of years before Jesus had intermarried with non-Jewish inhabitants during the time when the northern kingdom had been taken into exile by Assyria. To Jesus’ people, the Samaritans were half-breeds (or mud-bloods if you’re into the whole Harry Potter nomenclature). Good Jews would walk miles out of their way to avoid walking through Samaria. I can’t help but think about the delineations drawn today between Israel and Palestinian regions and the antipathy between them. Jesus was like a Jew walking into and through Gaza or the West Bank.

Jesus not only leads His disciples directly through Samaria, but He strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman. It was socially unacceptable for a Jewish man of Jesus’ day to speak to any woman in public. Jesus strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman. If Jesus was playing poker with the cultural rules of His day, His conversation with the Samaritan woman was Him going “all in.”

I find it fascinating that John shares this episode so early in his version of Jesus’ story. John’s audience was well aware that the Jesus movement had torn down traditional social and cultural distinctions between men and women, Jews and non-Jews, along with slaves and slave owners. In writing about Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, their two-day stay with the Samaritans there, and the Samaritans’ belief in Jesus, John was providing his readers with the reason that Jesus’ followers were so revolutionary in crossing such entrenched social mores. It’s what Jesus did Himself, and the example Jesus commanded them to follow.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I couldn’t fail to notice one small detail that I find of profound importance. John has already established how important Jesus’ “signs” and miracles were in leading His Jewish audience to believe in Him. When it came to the Samaritan woman and her people, there were no miracles worked. There was no “sign.” Instead, John specifically states that these socially unacceptable half-breed deplorables believed Jesus simply at His word.

I’m reminded this morning that as much as the world has changed since Jesus’ two-day stay in Samaria, the human condition hasn’t changed. People groups still hate one another with generationally perpetuated hard hearts and homicidal intensity. Individuals still seek “signs” from God as a prerequisite to belief. I find in the despised Samaritans an example I hope I emulate every day on this chapter-a-day journey: Simply taking Jesus at His word without the need for any other signs.

I couldn’t help but think of the episode John will share in the final chapters of his account. The risen Jesus invites Thomas to touch His wounds and verify that it was really Him. After Thomas proclaims his belief, Jesus responds “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

God, make me less like Doubting Thomas and more like the Samaritans.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Lessons Then and Now

October 26, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

You put off the day of disaster
and bring near a reign of terror.
Amos 6:3 (NIV)

It was an all-night music festival and make-shift campground. Hundreds of young people gathered to have fun and dance through the whole night. Suddenly, the electricity was cut. Stage lights and music became instant silence and darkness. Then the bullets from Hamas terrorists started firing indiscriminately into the crowd. By the time the massacre was over, some 260 young people lay dead.

In the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attacks, one of the predominate themes coming out of Israel was the complete and utter surprise. The government and army were unprepared. They didn’t see it coming. “We failed,” one official said matter-of-factly to the press, offering no elucidation.

As I continue my chapter-a-day trek through the ancient prophecies of Amos, I can’t help but think of the eery parallels with current events.

In today’s chapter, Amos describes the people of ancient Israel feasting, drinking, and partying to music. He then contrasts this with a prophecy of sudden terror and destruction that will come when another nation attacks. He describes a house full of dead bodies and a family member hiding among the corpses in fear of his life. Amos calls out ancient Israel’s complacency and pride lulling them into a false sense of security. The description reads like a description of the October 7 massacre and aftermath.

This morning, I sit in the quiet and ponder similar events both ancient and contemporary. What are my take aways?

The first thing I thing about is a warning against complacency. Ancient Israel was enjoying a boom of prosperity that was rooted in greed, corruption, and idolatry. Things were great in the moment for the fortunate and affluent. They didn’t want to listen to Amos’ words of warning. In similar ways, the U.S. before 9/11 and Israel before October 7, were not prepared for the instantaneous terror that was unleashed. How do I keep my mind and spirit honed to the realities of evil and hatred, and not get lulled into a false sense of security?

The second take away for me is the spiritual rot that lay at the root of Amos’ prophetic messages. God, through Amos, is begging for people to repent of their greed, their lack of concern for the poor and needy, and the self-centered rigging of systems to pad their pockets and get away with corruption at the expense of others. As a disciple of Jesus, how do I daily live true to the virtues of charity, generosity, compassion, and contentment in a world that teaches looking out for numero uno?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.