The Spoils of Victory: Fuel for a New Creation Text: Ezekiel 39:9-10
Introduction: The Logic of Gospel Victory
We live in an age of evangelical scurrying. A great many Christians, when they look at the world, see a rampaging behemoth of secularism, and their first instinct is to find a respectable hole to hide in. They have adopted a theology of inevitable defeat, where the best we can hope for is to pluck a few souls from the wreckage before the whole thing burns down. They read passages like the one before us, this account of Gog and Magog, and they immediately relegate it to a bewildering and complicated chart at the back of their Bible, something that will happen "over there" and "back then" in a rebuilt Jewish state, having nothing to do with the price of gas or the godlessness of our current rulers.
But this is to misread the entire story. The Bible is not a disjointed collection of anecdotes; it is one story, the story of God's triumph in Christ. And the Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel are not left behind in a dusty museum. They find their thunderous fulfillment in the Christian Church, the new and true Israel of God. The conflict with Gog of Magog, this vast confederacy of God-haters from the north, is a type, a dramatic picture of the world's final, impotent rage against Christ and His people. And the outcome is never in doubt. God Himself crushes this rebellion, not with our cleverness, but by His own sovereign might.
What we have in our text today is not a description of the battle, but rather the glorious aftermath. This is the clean-up operation. And in the details of this clean-up, the Holy Spirit is teaching us something profound about the nature of Christ's victory and the future of His Church. The world thinks it is forging weapons to destroy the people of God. They are stockpiling their legislative acts, their judicial rulings, their cultural propaganda, and their intellectual conceits. They believe they are building an arsenal. But God looks down from heaven and laughs. He sees them not building an arsenal, but rather cutting and stacking firewood for the saints. Every weapon formed against us will not only fail to prosper, it will be repurposed as fuel for our victory celebration.
This is the logic of a postmillennial gospel. Christ is reigning now, at the right hand of the Father, and He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. This means that all the other enemies, the Gogs and Magogs of this world, are subdued in history, through the power of the gospel. What Ezekiel describes in graphic, physical terms for the old covenant Israel is a spiritual and historical reality for the new covenant Church. The world's hostility is the raw material for the Church's growth and triumph.
The Text
Then those who inhabit the cities of Israel will go out and make fires with the weapons and burn them, both shields and large shields, bows and arrows, war clubs and spears; and for seven years they will make fires of them. They will not carry wood from the field or gather firewood from the forests, for they will make fires with the weapons; and they will take the spoil of those who made them into spoil and seize the plunder of those who plundered them, declares Lord Yahweh.
(Ezekiel 39:9-10 LSB)
A Covenantal Bonfire (v. 9)
We begin with the astonishing scene of disarmament and repurposing:
"Then those who inhabit the cities of Israel will go out and make fires with the weapons and burn them, both shields and large shields, bows and arrows, war clubs and spears; and for seven years they will make fires of them." (Ezekiel 39:9)
The first thing to notice is who is doing this. It is "those who inhabit the cities of Israel." After this monumental, world-shaking battle where God Himself intervened, the ordinary people, the citizens, come out to deal with the aftermath. This is not a specialized military unit. This is the Church, the people of God, living out the victory that Christ has won for them. The victory is so total, so complete, that the instruments of war are now nothing more than common fuel.
Look at the list of weapons: shields, large shields, bows, arrows, war clubs, spears. This is the complete set of ancient offensive and defensive armaments. The enemy was fully equipped, fully prepared for their assault. This was not a minor skirmish. This was the world's best shot. And it has all come to nothing. The very things designed to bring death and destruction to Israel are now used to provide warmth and light. This is the great reversal, the central theme of the gospel. The cross, an instrument of Roman torture and death, becomes the source of eternal life. The grave, a place of decay, becomes the site of resurrection. And here, the enemies' arsenal becomes a domestic blessing.
And how long does this last? For seven years. In Scripture, the number seven is the number of covenantal perfection and completion. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The Sabbath is the seventh day. The entire rhythm of Israel's life was built around sevens. For the fire to burn for seven years signifies a perfect and complete victory. There is nothing left to do. The war is so decisively over that the fuel supply from the enemy's own hand will last for a perfect, covenantal cycle of time. This isn't just winning a battle; this is the end of the war. It signifies a long period of peace and security, all fueled by the failed ambitions of the ungodly.
This is a picture of the gospel age. The philosophies and ideologies that set themselves up against Christ, from Roman paganism to modern Marxism, are all destined for the bonfire. As the Church advances, we are to take the "bows and arrows" of false arguments and godless educational systems and show them to be nothing but fuel. We take the "shields" of secular legal codes and show how they cannot protect from the judgment of God. We are not to be intimidated by the world's intellectual weaponry. It is all just kindling for the fires of reformation and revival.
Plundering the Plunderers (v. 10)
The second verse expands on this theme of total reversal and divine provision.
"They will not carry wood from the field or gather firewood from the forests, for they will make fires with the weapons; and they will take the spoil of those who made them into spoil and seize the plunder of those who plundered them, declares Lord Yahweh." (Ezekiel 39:10 LSB)
The victory is so comprehensive that for seven years, the people of God do not need to perform their ordinary labor to gather fuel. The provision comes entirely from the wreckage of the enemy. This is a picture of God's superabundant grace. The world spends centuries building up its institutions, its universities, its media empires, all with the intent of marginalizing and destroying the faith. But when God decides to move, all that infrastructure, all that accumulated capital, becomes the spoil of the Church.
This is the principle of "plundering the Egyptians." When Israel left Egypt, they did so laden with the gold and silver of their former masters, which was then used to build the Tabernacle. When the strong man is bound, his house is plundered (Mark 3:27). History is filled with examples. The printing press, a secular invention, becomes the engine of the Reformation. The Roman roads, built for the legions, become the highways for the apostles. The English language, forged in a pagan land, becomes a primary vehicle for global missions. The internet, designed by the military-industrial complex, becomes a tool for distributing sermons and theological resources to the ends of the earth.
The text is explicit: "they will take the spoil of those who made them into spoil and seize the plunder of those who plundered them." This is covenantal justice. The world system is, by its nature, predatory. It plunders families through taxation and inflation. It plunders minds through godless education. It plunders righteousness through the promotion of sin. But God has promised a great reversal. The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous (Proverbs 13:22). This is not a promise of a heavenly lottery ticket. It is the inexorable, historical result of faithfulness, wisdom, and the blessing of God. As God's people live according to His law, they become productive, and as the ungodly live in rebellion, their societies crumble. And in that crumbling, the Church is there to seize the plunder.
And notice the certainty of it. This is not a hopeful suggestion. It concludes with, "declares Lord Yahweh." This is a divine decree. This is going to happen because the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth has spoken it. Our eschatology should not be based on newspaper headlines or the latest outrage from Washington, but on the settled declarations of Almighty God.
Conclusion: Fuel for the Future
So what does this mean for us, here and now? It means we must fundamentally change the way we view the world and its opposition to our faith. We are not the scrappy, losing remnant. We are the "inhabitants of the cities of Israel," and a great victory has already been won for us at the cross and the empty tomb.
First, we must stop being intimidated by the enemy's weapons. The intellectual artillery of the new atheists, the cultural bombardment from Hollywood, the legal machinations of the secular state, all of it is destined to be fuel for our fires. We should be studying it, not to be impressed by it, but to learn how to burn it. We should be preparing our children to see these worldly philosophies for what they are: hollow, combustible, and ultimately useful only for the advancement of the kingdom they seek to oppose.
Second, we must embrace the long view. The victory celebration lasts for "seven years," a perfect and complete period of time. Our work is not for this election cycle or the next fiscal quarter. We are building cathedrals. We are planting oak trees. The gospel works slowly, like leaven in a lump of dough, but it works thoroughly. The triumph of the Church in history is as certain as the promise of God, and that triumph will be a time of great peace and prosperity, fueled by the conversion of our enemies' greatest treasures.
Finally, we must live as plunderers, not the plundered. This means living lives of diligent obedience, building strong families, establishing faithful churches, and creating robust Christian culture. As the surrounding pagan culture continues its inevitable decay, we must be ready to take the spoil. We must be ready to offer a better way, to build better institutions, to create better art, to do better science. We are not retreating from the world; we are here to disciple it, to plunder it for the glory of Christ.
The enemies of God are, at this very moment, laboring mightily. They are sharpening their spears and fletching their arrows. They are building their shields and readying their clubs. And in His heaven, God is not wringing His hands. He is smiling. He sees them, not as a threat, but as His unwitting woodsmen, diligently cutting and stacking the fuel for a seven-year bonfire of victory. And we are the ones who will light it.