Is this past or future? Are these seven years spoken of literal years? What Israel is referred to? If past, when was it fulfilled? To whom does "Gog" refer? Chapters 36 to 48 of Ezekiel are composed of prophecies which would have been fulfilled to Israel in the restoration from Babylon if Israel had met the conditions which the Lord imposed; if they had forsaken their sins and returned to the Lord with all their hearts, God would have restored Israel. The temple built by Zerubbabel would have been far greater and grander; God's children would have been the joy of the whole earth, and marvelous things would have been wrought in the Holy Land for them. The enemies that would have swept down upon them from the North, would have met the fate indicated in Ezekiel 38, 39, and Israel would have conquered. Those enemies of course would have come against them with wooden munitions of war, arrows and bows and shields and bucklers which could have been burned and would have been as the prophet indicated; but when Israel failed, of course the prophecy was fulfilled only in a very small part. The wonderful temple and sanctuary described by Ezekiel dwindled to the smaller one erected by Zerubbabel, and the wonderful glory of the prophet had but the faintest shadow in the prosperity which came to Israel after the restoration from Babylon.—But there is coming a time when it will be fulfilled in the greater glory of the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and events connected therewith. But there will not be the local conditions which existed in the prophet's day. There will be no burning of weapons; there will be no cleansing of the land by human hands; the fires of the last day will consume the sin out of the world and melt the earth with fervent heat. Looking upon these prophecies in this way all is clear and plain. Otherwise we meet with continual difficulties and inconsistencies. Gog and Magog represent great Northern powers, ambitious powers whose spirit is that of Satan, and whose ambition it is to rule in the place of all others.