Assyrians | Gog & Magog
REFORMATION: Angel from Heaven | Fire from Heaven
REFORMATION: "Fire from Heaven" compared with divine deliverance of old Jerusalem by angel from Heaven during Hezekiah
OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS Old Jerusalem receives sudden, divine deliverance from existence-threatening siege by an angel from Heaven.
NEW TESTAMENT SAINTS "The Camp of the Saints, the Beloved City" receives sudden, divine deliverance from existence-threatening siege by "fire from Heaven."
2 Kings 18:9-19:37
17 Andthe king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host againstJerusalem.And they went up and came to Jerusalem.
32 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
35And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
37 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.
Revelation 20:7-10
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city:and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Commentary This passage begins by stating that the Assyrians already took away the cities of Israel & Judah before approaching Jerusalem. Those taken away were hardly heard from ever again, even considered "the lost tribes of Israel." Even when some were allowed to return to the land of Israel much later, they were ever after referred to as "Samaritans," never quite "God's People " ever again. This was, then, a circumstance in which the very existence of God's Covenant People, Jerusalem was threatened with extinction more than any time since the Exodus which preceded the conquest of the promised land and the establishment of the kingdom.
Commentary LIkewise, this siege by Gog & Magog was envisioned as a circumstance in which the very existence of "the Camp of the Saints, the beloved City" was threatened with extinction more than any time since the Tribulation which preceded the 1000-years Millennium. Such were the circumstances of true Christian believers everywhere when the fire of the Reformation suddenly came as a deliverance from Heaven.