What Luke 17:20-23+37 teaches Christians, Jews and Muslims about a Messianic Age |
Luke 17:20 says Jesus “was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, and Jesus answered them; “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
22 And he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 “And they will say to you, ‘Look there,’ or, ‘Look here!’ Do not leave, and do not run after them… And 37 Responding, they said to him, “Where, Lord?” And he said to them, “Where the body is, so the vultures will be.”
Now the Middle East is filled with unanswered questions: ‘Jesus said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.”
Gog-Magog (Hebrew Bible) and Yajuj-Majuj (Arabic Qur’an) are the long time threats to God’s future Messianic Age. In the 17th to 19th centuries they took the form of European Colonial Empires. In the 20th century they took the form of mass murder genocide Nazi (Hitler) and Communist (Stalin, Mao) political dictatorships. And now in the 21st century Gog and Magog are taking a new form of war and plagues, with worldwide human misuse of Earth’s natural resources though Global Warming, and the human arrogant misuse of generated Artificial Intelligence.
Yajuj and Majuj are mentioned both in Qur’an and hadith. In Islam their appearance will be one of the signs of the end times. These events will transpire after the arrival of Dajjal, Mehdi and Prophet Jesus. Gog and Magog (“Gog u-Magog” in Hebrew and “Yajuj and Majuj” in Arabic) are names that appear in the Hebrew Bible and in the Qur’an. They are sometimes personified as individuals, and often identified as nations or geographic regions and/or catastrophic natural events: all references in Bible, Qur’an and Hadith (oral and then written tradition) clearly indicate that they are very numerous in number, and will appear from the North-east toward the end of times, before the Day of Judgement:
“They said, “O Dhul-Qarnayn, indeed Gog and Magog are [powerful] corrupters in the land. So may we pay you to make a barrier between us and them?” (Qur’an 18:94) In 2011 the “Arab Spring” filled most of the world with great hopes. Now, 15 years later, the near east is filled with with increasing conflict, anxiety, fear, and despair. A worldwide poll for Reuters (May 2, 2012) found “nearly 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime”. That number is surely much higher now.
“Whether they think it [the world] will come to an end through the hands of God, or a........