For so many years I thought the Gog and Magog war was because countries hate Israel and it's true, especially the Arabs. I always wondered what the catalyst for these countries to come together and attack, could it be this war? What if Israel doesn't stop with Hama? I'd like to hear your thoughts, thank you.
Gog and Magog, in the Old Testament, is probably representative of "The Nations" in a broad sense, i.e. the nations hostile to ancient Israel, and probably not a reference to real places. In the Apocalypse John borrows a lot of language from the apocalyptic and prophetic literature of the Old Testament, including the Gog and Magog language.
Israel, the biblical nation described in the Old Testament, doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for a long time. Just because a modern country calls itself "Israel" doesn't make it so. There's simply no reason to connect ancient prophetic statements in Holy Scripture with the modern country called "Israel" today.
When St. John wrote the Apocalypse he was addressing contemporary circumstances facing the Church at the end of the first century, most likely during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). The early Church Historian Eusebius of Caesarea tells us that the emperors after Nero were generally content to not bother the Church, and so Vespasian and Titus left Christians alone; but that when Domitian took power he eventually started persecution up again, which hadn't happened since Nero (when many of the early leaders of the Church, like Paul and Peter, were martyred). Thus, under Domitian's reign, troubles began again for Christians. John writes that he was a prisoner on the island of Patmos, exiled there on account of his Christian witness, he addresses the Apocalypse to the seven churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor in what is now south-western Turkey.
It's not altogether clear which John wrote the Apocalypse, and there is disagreement in early Christian witness about how many Johns there were. The earliest witnesses attest two Johns: John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, and attribute the Apocalypse to John the Presbyter (who is also said to have written the Epistles of John). Later Christian witnesses conflate these two as being one and the same, and John the Presbyter and John the Apostle are regarded as the same person. Thus attributing to John the Apostle authorship of the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.
Regardless, the John who wrote the Apocalypse was believed to be a central leader among the Asian churches, based in Ephesus. And thus John had been exiled from Ephesus to Patmos, just off the coast of Asia. There he received his apocalyptic visions, and wrote them down as a letter of Apocalypse (Revelation) from Jesus to the seven churches in Asia (see Revelation 1:4-20)
The context, therefore, of the entire work is the current circumstances of the late 1st century Church under the oppression of Roman power. The mini-epistles contained in Revelation chapters 2-3 address more specific content, for example the trouble with certain heretics, or the problem of spiritual laziness. Jesus accuses the Laodicaeans of having grown comfortable in their affluence and thus they had become useless; but even to the Ephesians Jesus accuses them of having forsaken their first love..
The rest of the text contains the visions which John received, written in the classic Jewish apocalyptic style. There's a point to the text beyond the graphic imagery of monstrous beasts and plagues, and that's the Victory of Christ as the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world over death, hell, and the devil. And that Jesus' people have victory and overcome by trusting in Him--and thus whatever the world throws at the Church cannot overcome the Church, because ultimately the Church overcomes through Christ her Lord. It is a
Lamb who has conquered and is seated on the Throne. In the end, it is not the power of princes and emperors, but the power of Christ the Lamb who has Conquered, which wins. In the long arm of history, God is Victorious, because Christ has Conquered, and all the powers of this fallen age shall become nothing, "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15) this is why remaining faithful to Christ and not selling oneself over to the power of the kingdoms of this world is stressed.
All manner of problems arise if we try to read the Apocalypse as a future-predicting book, which frequently leads us away from the central themes of the text: Jesus is the Lamb on the Throne, He has Conquered, and all who trust and abide in Him are also conquerors.
-CryptoLutheran
