In the April newsletter, Steve examines growing claims that modern conflicts—especially involving Russia and Iran—are fulfillments of biblical prophecy. Drawing on Scripture and the wisdom of the early Church, he challenges these interpretations and offers a clearer, more faithful understanding of passages like Gog and Magog—calling readers away from speculation and back to sound biblical truth.
From the Desk of Steve Wood at the Family Life Center (April 2026)
The Theology of War Against Russia and Iran
A troubling claim has begun circulating in some military circles. Reports indicate that certain dispensationalist officers are telling their troops that the war in Iran is not merely a geopolitical conflict but a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy. According to these claims, the fighting is part of the events described in Revelation and represents the beginning of the final battle of Armageddon.
The passage most often cited is Revelation 16:15–16:
Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed!”And they assembled them at the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon.
An old warning against misinterpreting Scripture says, “A text without a context is a pretext.” If these officers read the two preceding verses, they would discover that in Revelation 16, the end-times gathering for a final Middle East war results from a worldwide demonic deception:
And I saw, issuing from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet, three foul spirits like frogs; for they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty (Rev 16:13-14).
Without realizing it, dispensationalist claims that Revelation 16:15 justifies military action are, in effect, saying that the war is the result of demonic spirits luring the nations into battle.
What’s Wrong with Dispensationalism?
Dispensationalism is the theological system that underlies the popular “Rapture at any moment” theory.
At the center of dispensational thought lies the claim that God maintains a rigid separation between his plans for Israel and his plans for the church. Yet the New Testament explicitly refutes this idea. In the New Covenant, the distinction between Jew and Gentile no longer divides God’s redemptive people. In Christ, Jew and Gentile become one people of God in the church (Ephesians 2:11-22).
How Do Dispensationalists React to War in the Middle East?
Whenever conflict erupts in the Middle East, dispensationalists quickly turn to Ezekiel 38–39. By severely misinterpreting these chapters, they construct elaborate end-times battle scenarios.
Ezekiel 38 opens with a reference to Gog and Magog. God says, “Behold I am against you, O Gog, chief prince.” The Hebrew word translated “chief” is rosh.
There is no place or nation called Rosh anywhere in the Bible. Yet because the word sounds vaguely like “Russia,” and because Gog is said to come from the north, dispensationalist interpreters claim that Gog represents modern Russia.
A few verses later, Ezekiel also mentions Persia among the coalition of Gog and Magog. The modern nation of Iran occupies the central territory of the ancient Persian Empire. Their supposed “clincher” is that Iran today happens to be politically aligned with Russia.
Thus, with only a few misinterpreted verses from Ezekiel 38, dispensationalists construct a dramatic end-times narrative about a coming war involving Russia and Iran.
The problem is that serious Jewish and Christian scholarship overwhelmingly rejects this interpretation.
The 1600-page, two-volume commentary on Ezekiel by evangelical scholar Daniel Block is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative modern works on the book. Block writes:
“The popular identification of Rosh with Russia is impossibly anachronistic and based on a faulty etymology.”
The Passage Dispensationalists Avoid
There is a curious pattern in the way dispensationalist teachers handle the subject of Gog and Magog. These popular “prophecy experts” frequently cite passages from Revelation—yet when Gog and Magog appear in Revelation, they suddenly become silent.
Why?
Because Revelation also describes a final battle involving Gog and Magog. When Ezekiel and Revelation are interpreted together, the entire “Russia and Iran” war scenario collapses.
What Revelation Says about Gog and Magog
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city; but fire came down from heaven and consumed them (Revelation 20:7-9).
Dispensationalists sometimes claim that the Gog and Magog of Revelation 20 must be different from the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel.
But the parallels between Ezekiel and Revelation are unmistakable. The book of Revelation repeatedly echoes Ezekiel’s imagery and outline. In many ways, St. John’s Apocalypse functions as a New Covenant reworking of Ezekiel’s visions.
Examples include:
- The throne vision (Rev 4 / Ezk 1)
- The scroll with writing on front and back (Rev 5 / Ezk 2)
- The plagues upon the covenant breakers (Rev 6 / Ezk 5–8)
- The sealing of the foreheads of the saints (Rev 7 / Ezk 9)
- The coals of fire from the altar of God (Rev 8 / Ezk 10)
- The announcement that judgment is at hand (Rev 10 / Ezk 12)
- Jerusalem compared to Sodom (Rev 11:8 / Ezk 16)
- The great city portrayed as a harlot (Rev 17–18 / Ezk 16 & 23)
- The first resurrection (Rev 20:4–6 / Ezk 37)
- Gog and Magog battling the saints (Rev 20:7–9 / Ezk 38–39)
- The New Jerusalem (Rev 21 / Ezk 40–48)
- The River of Life (Rev 22 / Ezk 47)
G.K. Beale rightly interprets Revelation 20’s imagery of Gog and Magog:
The assembly of these forces against God’s people is seen as a fulfillment of the prophecy in Ezekiel 38–39 of “Gog and Magog” and the nations “gathering for war” against Israel. Gog and Magog are equated with all the nations. The oppressed Israel in Ezekiel 38-39 is universalized to refer to the true church throughout the earth.
In Revelation 20, the nations of the entire world gather just before the Second Coming of Christ to attack the church, not the modern nation of Israel. Revelation should therefore interpret Ezekiel—not the other way around.
What Augustine Said about Gog & Magog
The interpretation of Gog and Magog as a worldwide assault on the church is not new. Around A.D. 425–426, St. Augustine explained Gog and Magog in this passage in The City of God, Book XX:
And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.” This then, is his purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle.
For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world … For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth.
The words, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world.
For Augustine, Gog and Magog represent the nations of the world united in hostility toward the church.
Conclusion
The dispensationalist Ezekiel-based “theology of war with Russia and Iran” represents a profound distortion of Scripture. It encourages geopolitical speculation and even military conflict based on interpretations that have little support in serious biblical scholarship.
Anyone seeking a sober and historically grounded understanding of biblical prophecy would do well to read The City of God, Book XX. It is only about thirty-one pages long—but taking Augustine seriously might prevent reckless speculation about prophecy and unnecessary conflict with a nuclear power.
Yours in His Majesty’s Service,
Steve Wood
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