Steve,

 

I see from your post  http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/feb2015/stevec21.htm  that you are now excited about the Ezekiel 37 prophecy and God's end time army. And as per your post I see that you are looking for feedback on this topic.

 

With that said........I have followed the Doves site for many years and have shared my biblical thoughts to the Doves family many times on a variety of topics.  One of my favorite topics over those years has been the "literal" interpretation of Ezekiel 37 and God's end time army.

 

I started posting on this particular topic several years ago and have since shared and discussed this scenario with the Doves on several occasions. It is such a huge part of the end time scenario that I was flabbergasted that no one else has saw fit to address this very important topic.  When I did ( posting on it on several occasions) I received very little if any feedback concerning Ezekiel 37, it's huge resurrection, and the resulting "exceedingly great army" that the Lord personally oversees in the end time scenario. I try to read the Doves site every week and to my knowledge I am the only one who has tried to shed light on this topic. If someone else has and I missed it.......forgive my oversight.

 

This shrouding or concealment or apathy of the facts by biblical writers concerning Ezekiel 37 has had me completely puzzled and confused for many years. When I read the biblical texts that accompany and back up Ezekiel 37 like Joel 2, Revelation 7, Revelation 9, Haggai 2, Isaiah 13, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 5, Psalms 60, Isaiah 31 and others I see and they paint a "very clear" picture of the coming events. How many times and places in scripture does God have to point these events out for this to become  a commonly accepted and clearly described scenario?? Nobody seems to get it.

 

Get what?

 

That God puts sinews and flesh and skin back on the bones of  "the whole house of Israel". He resurrects all the descendents of Jacob that span thousands of years but He hits the pause button (if you will) before blowing life and His Spirit back into them.

 

That before the four winds blow life into these people and He puts "His Spirit" into them, He first chooses 144,000 male virgins from this great multitude of these resurrected........ as His first fruits. These 144,000 become His personal entourage and follow Him where ever He goes.

 

That after these 144,000 have been sealed and taken away, He tasks four angels to prevent the four winds from blowing life back into the remainder of these hundreds of millions of people until the time is right to activate them (His) end time army that He calls.... an exceedingly great army.

 

That when the hour, day, month and year is correct He releases these four angels allowing the four winds to blow life and His spirit into these hundreds of millions of people.

 

That these resurrected beings now compose an army of two hundred million "spirit beings" that are tasked to kill one third of mankind.

 

That these beings will ride fire breathing horses that kill with fire, smoke and brimstone and are able to leap over mountain tops if necessary.

 

That these people / beings as per Joel 2 are great and strong and the likes of them have never been before.

 

That these beings are God's end time army and together with Him they dispense His fury as spoken of in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

 

That these beings will be mustered and dispatched from Israel's God given original northern boundary.......the Euphrates River.

 

That it will take 7 months to clean up the carnage and bodies from God's fury and the ride of this army and Israel will supply it's energy needs for seven years just from the spoils of the weapons this army captures in this great event. This "seven year period" would lead one to believe that this event the Ezekiel 38 and 39 scenario happens at the very start of Jacob's trouble or the start of the last seven years before the millennium. It appears to me that it will be the kickoff of the last seven years.

 

Steve.......This description is a brief overview of what is to happen from Ezekiel 37 to Ezekiel 39. I will give you scripture and verse to backup every statement I made above if you wish. The bible has a great deal to say in many other areas concerning this topic........a topic that few people seem to pay any attention to. I am glad to see that God has raised your interest in this and that you are seeking insight on this amazing end time scenario........one that most everyone else ignores.

 

One of my many posts on this topic was last June I will copy some of it below..........

 

Blessings Steve.........John B

 

 

 

 

A post from June 2014..........

 

Doves,

 

Being a past frequent poster to Doves I have not posted to the site for many months. I just haven't felt prompted by God to do so...... until now. I always read and take a keen interest in the Dove posts for their varied prophetic information and especially individual biblical discernment by the posters. Of late I have been extremely impressed by Pastor Bob's posts. His seasoned vast working Christian knowledge and his discernment of scripture are priceless in this era of apostasy and false prophets / doctrine.

 

He especially and others on Doves have of late commented on or focused on taking the scriptures literally and I couldn't agree more with that approach. With this "literal approach" in mind, as the God inspired driving force......... I would like to take you on a journey of what I believe God has shared with me concerning literal end time scriptures.

 

Obviously there are many facets of the end time literal scenario and I can't cover them all today so where do I start? Lets start was current events in the Middle East and what those events appear to be leading to.

 

A large group of demonic filled fighters have appeared seemingly out of nowhere and have garnered the support of millions of disgruntled Sunni Muslims. They are referred by the acronym.... ISIS....which stands for The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It is also know as The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham or Greater Syria. Sham or Greater Syria refers to Cyprus, Palestine, Jordon, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Turkey.

 

Their primary mission is the eradication of Israel as is mentioned by The World Net Daily in this article.........

http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/iraq-invaders-threaten-nuke-attack-on-israel/

 

ISIS is probably the most evil demonic filled bloodthirsty group to come onto the world stage in a long time. Of where do they come? Does scripture give us any hints? First of all a reminder that we are warned by God not to think only in the physical realm but to know that we will be fighting primarily spiritual forces. Ephes. 6:12 explains it this way......For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

 

There is no doubt there is a huge spiritual aspect as to what is going on in Iraq by ISIS. As to where they come from I believe God has shared that with us in His word. In generic geographic terms this ISIS group comes from Gog of the land of Magog. In spiritual terms this group comes from a demonic stronghold / location on this planet ruled for centuries by one of Satan's demonic princes. God describes it this way in Ezek. 38.......Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Roch, Meshech and Tubal.

 

This evil demonic prince of Satan, Gog, whose geographic stronghold / location encompasses a vast territory of western Asia and eastern Europe is I believe the evil entity responsible for the inception or creation of the Islamic faith. I believe that he is the same demonic force that prevented God's angel from reaching Daniel the prophet for 21 days. Gog is an extremely powerful demonic force in that region of the world and has been for centuries and through his influence he has sown extreme evil into the hearts of those who have accepted the Muslim faith and follow their evil teachings.

 

God has witnessed for centuries the atrocities perpetrated by this evil demonic prince and his demonic Islamic religion on His people Israel and others and decided to put the demonic prince Gog and all his followers of of business....permanently. Ezekiel 37, 38 and 39 bares witness to how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob accomplishes this mission.

 

Lets start in Ezekiel 37......In Ezekiel 37 God literally resurrects from the dead the whole house of Israel (verses 4-11). That's correct, hundreds of millions of decedents of Jacob that have died throughout the centuries. What does He do with all these people? At this resurrection as per Rev.7 and Rev.14 He retains 144,000 of them as His first fruits of His creation. As per Rev.14 these 144,000 are male virgins who have never been defiled by a woman and from then forward follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

What does He do with the hundreds of millions that are left from this resurrection? Ezekiel tells us in Ezek.37:10 that God uses them to create His own "exceedingly great army". Not only are they brought back to a conscious state but they are spirit beings like Christ was after His resurrection. In verses 13 and 14 God states...Then you shall know that I am Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Two very important things I want you to remember from this verse. 1) That God put His very own Spirit into these people the spirit of the risen Christ and....2) That He will place them back in their own land.

Keep in mind that the original land tract that God gave to Abraham extended north all the way to the Euphrates River this will become important later in the post.

 

So we have learned from Ezekiel 37 that God has established his own spirit filled army that He considers an extremely great army. Wow! for someone who created the vastness of the universe what do you think God would consider to be an "Exceedingly great army"? Any guesses? We'll get to that in a moment. First lets let God in His own words describe this unbelievable, unmatched, unbeatable army when we read Joel 2.....

 

Joel 2:1-11

Blow the trumpet in Zion,

And sound an alarm in my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble;

For the day of the Lord is coming,

For it is at hand:

A day of darkness and gloominess,

A day of clouds and thick darkness,

Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains.

A people come great and strong,

The like of whom has never been;

Nor will there ever be any such after them,

Even for many successive generations.

A fire devours before them,

And behind them a flame burns;

The land is like the Garden of Eden before them,

And behind them a desolate wilderness;

Surely nothing shall escape them.

There appearance is like the appearance of horses;

And like swift steeds, so they run.

With a noise like chariots

Over mountaintops they leap,

Like the noise of flaming fire that destroys the stubble,

Like a strong people set in battle array.

Before them people writhe in pain;

All faces are drained of color.

They run like mighty men,

They climb the wall like men of war;

Everyone marches in formation,

And they do not break ranks.

They do not push one another;

Everyone marches in his own column.

Though they lunge between the weapons,

They are not cut down.

They run to and fro in the city,

They run on the wall;

They climb into the houses,

They enter at the windows like a thief.

The earth quakes before them,

The heavens tremble;

The sun and the moon grow dark,

And the stars diminish their brightness.

The Lord gives voice before His army.

For his camp is very great;

For strong is the one who executes His word.

For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;

Who can endure it?

 

God through Joel gives us great insight as to the discipline and ferocity of this army. Keep in mind that these are spirit beings filled with the spirit of the creator of the universe. No prior army has ever had the attributes of this one.

 

This army needs no fuel, no rest, no transportation, no re-supply, no anything. Unimaginable horror on an unimaginable scale. Picture a huge fire breathing lawn mower that's a hundred miles wide that is cleansing the earth with fire.

 

So, God has an exceedingly great end time army. How big is it and what does He do with it? What is the task of this army? Lets let the scriptures answer those questions and to do this we need to follow "the four winds".

 

In Ezekiel 37 this great resurrected army has everything restored to them (bone, sinews, flesh) but not their consciousness. As per Ezek.37:9-10

it's "the four winds" that blow the spirit of God into them to bring them to consciousness.

 

In God's chain of command He has four angels that oversee these four winds as we learn in Rev.7:1.....After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth...... God does not want these angels to release these four winds to blow life back into these millions of people (this exceedingly great army) because He first needs to take His first fruits the 144,000 as per the same section Rev.7.

 

So what do we have? We have four angels holding back the four winds from blowing consciousness back into this army. God has hit the pause button until the time is right. Does He tell us when the angels are free to release the four winds and activate this exceedingly great army? Yes

 

In Rev.9 we learn in verse 14 that these four "good" angels (not bad angels as people would have you believe) are released to accomplish their mission. God has prepared them for a specific hour, day, month and year. It's my belief that their mission was to release the four winds to blow life into this exceedingly great army. We now find out from Rev.9:16 that this resurrected army that God considers an exceedingly great army consists of 200,000,000 personnel.

 

Where was this army activated? At the Euphrates River...verse 14 . This is the northern border of the original land grant given to them by God. God says in Ezek.37:14 that He would place them in their own land and He did.

 

Does this army in Rev.9 agree in description with God's end time army in Joel 2? Yes, they both ride fire breathing horses and kill with fire and brimstone.

 

Bible scholars will lead you to believe that this 200 million man army comes from the east or Asia. The only country that could field that many troops would be China and their present standing army is nowhere near that number. If China could muster an army of that size it would be "mission impossible" from a logistics and supply perspective to have them all located at the Euphrates River. And they would never as the saying goes "put all their eggs (troops) in one basket" and leave their homeland unguarded. Logic and common sense warrants that the only entity that could field an army of that size at that location would be God Himself.

 

So it's God's army and He's activated them at the Euphrates River to kill one third of mankind. That's over 2 billion people. Who are these 2 billion people God is going to kill?

 

God resurrects and restores His army in Ezekiel 37 and He purposes them one chapter later in Ezekiel 38. In chapter 38 we view through this scripture that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (our God) is way way beyond extremely upset with Gog and all of Gog's followers. As I stated earlier I believe that the Satanic demonic prince that rules eastern Europe and western Asia known as Gog is or was responsible for starting the false demonic religion of Islam. Gog has garnered over two billion people to join his demonic religion that terrorizes the world. A religion of death since the 7th century and they have terrorized God's chosen people Israel relentlessly. Now as per Ezekiel 38, through God's coaxing (hook in the jaw), Gog and millions of the demonic filled Muslims from all over the world are lured to the Middle East in an attempt to eradicate Israel. God says in Ezek.38...... that they will come like a storm and cover the land like a cloud..... Doesn't that sound(on a smaller scale) like what happened last week in Iraq with ISIS? This scenario is in it's initial stages and growing rapidly. It won't be stopped because God is prompting it.

 

God is so upset about this plan to eradicate His people that He personally in addition to His 200 million man army intervenes on Israel's behalf. In verse 18 it states.....And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel, says the Lord God, that My fury will show in My face........ The only way that that statement can be correct ......that the fury will show in My face......is that He (God) is going to show His face to Gog's troops. We have learned through scripture that God is like pure light energy, kind of like looking at a nuclear bomb detonation. So I believe this is the explanation to Zechariah 14:12 which states.........And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem. There flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths..... In other words they looked at the face of God. Notice it says the Lord will strike these people and melt their body parts........ not nuclear weapons as many scholars have speculated.

 

Ezekiel 38 says that Gog's troops will be destroyed by flooding rain, great hailstones, and fire and brimstone. What do we see the army in Joel 2 and Rev.9 use to do their killing.......fire and brimstone.

 

So bottom line, I believe that by reading the bible literally one can conclude that God has tasked His 200 million man army to eradicate the Muslim people worldwide just like what the Muslims had in store for the Jews and Christians if their goals from the Koran and Allah were successful and God would not have intervened. It's funny (and righteous) that throughout history in the stories of the bible if an evil plot is or was orchestrated against God's chosen people those plots are turned 180 degrees and the same evil ends up being dispensed on the planners of said evil.

 

God is going to do this same role reversal again soon only on a much grander scale when He eradicates one third of the human race which happen to be followers of Gog who we know as Muslims. There will be no place throughout the world for them to hide when God and His 200 million spirit filled invincible army riding fire breathing horses go on the hunt for them. If you Doves have Muslim friends a heads up and a conversion to our side would be their only salvation.