John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Looking into the meaning of the word world only confused me. There is so much involved. So I thought to view the world in different terms.

John 1:3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

By simple substitution John 3:17 would read like this. “For God did not send his Son into His creation to condemn His creation, but in order that His creation might be saved through him.”

There is no point in saving people from their sins if afterwards they have no place to live. In the beginning when God created Adam He gave Adam the responsibility for tending the garden and everything in it. When sin entered the world changed from a place of peace and perfection to what it is today. “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Mankind’s responsibility to the land did not change even though the world changed. Here is where the differences between those two versions of John 3:17 become apparent. The world is His creation and belongs to Him. People in the world have a tendency to see the land as their land. They will possess it and care for it with self-interest, to do as they please.

Man moved from caretaker to a master of his own domain. The nature of sinful man it to become consumer, conqueror, user and abuser. But within that sinful nature of man is another group of people.

Romans 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Suddenly mankind guilts one another for not being the caretaker and blaming others for not loving the creation as if it belongs to them.They do not acknowledge this is God’s World and that we are all strangers here. As much as we would all like to get back to the garden, we ruined it and it changed forever. Forever is an eternal term and we do not live in the eternal.

At least not yet. O impatient man, what are you waiting for?

Ezekiel 38:22 With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur.

What God showed Ezekiel would have been very difficult to understand in terms of modern warfare. It would be easy to convert prophecy into current events in the hope that an end to all this is coming soon. That is man’s hope but is it the truth? God only knows,

The battle of Gog and Magog described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is perhaps one of the most debated events in biblical prophecy. Some approach these chapters as non-literal, having only an idealist or figurative meaning, without any historical reality. This provides no possibility of a future fulfillment of the details contained in the passage, which leaves the reader to find a meaning relevant to present circumstances without any significant controls to govern that meaning. Quote by Les Crawford posting on Friends of Israel website.

Ezekiel 39:6 I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Misinterpretation of prophecies easily twists the vision to satisfy our hopes. We are warned against this because it could be vanity to hope in anything but God.

He gave the vision to Ezekiel with purpose, to make Himself known. That purpose is still alive today. God still wants to make Himself known. Given that mankind can and often does turn to believe in God during times of trouble, let our hope for this present danger be that hearts will seek to know God.

What I discovered during my time in war is just how wrong my thinking could be. Know that God still turns hearts of stone in these present dangers into flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

This too was a message given to Ezekiel to share with mankind with purpose.

May the Word do His bidding. AMEN