This passage obviously foretells an event that is still future to us. Its greater purpose is to give hope to a chastened nation. Its message tells us that in the end God will have His way with His people: having given them new hearts and His Spirit to live in them, He will have transformed them into people who can enjoy relationship with Him as He created man to share relationship with Him. Then He will show up in a big way to rescue them from their enemies, using the confrontation as an opportunity to show Himself holy, “other,” not only in their sight, but also in the sight of the whole world.
We tend to miss the message because we get preoccupied from the opening sentence of the prophecy, with whom God is talking about. We don’t know who Gog is, or where his land Magog is. We do know that Persia is Iran and Cush is south of Egypt, and Put is also an African neighbor of Egypt. Some of these enemies will come from north of Israel. That’s all we know. If we get stalled trying to figure out more than God gave us, we will miss the message.
The message tells us that God wants to be a hero to His people. He created us for relationship with Him, and He makes relationship appealing, for the more we know of Him, the more we want to know of Him. The more we know of Him, the more appealing we find Him. Don’t we all like a hero? Don’t we all want to be loved enough to be rescued? Spend some time today contemplating what a hero God is to you. Snuggle close and tell Him how wonderful He is, and thank Him for saving you.