Transcription
Vision of the glory returning. And then, this one is a vision that probably, if you've heard anything from the book, you may have heard this one. I want you to see that in the run-up to the vision itself, in 37:1-14, which is where we're going, the vision of the valley of the dry bones, I want you to see the run-up to it. Because in chapter 36, he's in the section where he's begun the consolation. Okay, remember the hinge of the book is in 33. He gets a second call on his life and says, "All right, you've been giving them the bad news. Now I need you to turn on the good news. Let me explain to you why I did what I did with your wife. Let me explain to you why I let the temple fall. Let me explain to you what I'm going to do. Then I want you to load with both barrels and go out there and shoot compassion all over them." Okay? And now we're in the compassion section. So the sense of the narrative changes. This is the consolation, the good stuff.
In chapter 36, here he's talking about how he's going to be bringing back Israel and blessing them. So all that down, down, down is now lift, lift, lift. Okay? In 36:1, it says, "And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, 'O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord, thus says the Lord God: Because the enemy has spoken against you, "Aha!" and the everlasting heights have become our possession,' therefore prophesy and say, 'Thus says the Lord God: For good reason they have made you desolate and crushed you from every side, that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations, that you have been taken up in the talk and the whispering of the people.' Therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord, the Lord God."
"Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, to the desolate waste places, to the forsaken cities that have become a prey and a derision to the rest of the nations which are about you." So he says, "I want you to prophesy, but I want you to prophesy to the landscape, to the mountains, to the cliffs, to the ravines, to the desert places, to the broken cities."
Verse 5: "Therefore, thus says the Lord God, 'Surely in the fire of my jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations and against all Edom who appropriated my land for themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and with scorn of soul, to drive it out for a prey.'" He says, "I want you to know, I did. I was the one who stood against you as the nations took you away, and I'm going to be the one who stands against the nations and the way they've behaved against you."
And then in verse 6: "Therefore, prophesy concerning the Land of Israel and say to the mountains and to the hills, the ravines and the valleys, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my wrath, because you have endured the insults of the nations.' Therefore, thus says the Lord God, 'I have sworn that surely the nations which are around you will themselves endure their insults.'" He said, "Just as the Ammonites, Moabites, and others have come down on you, those entire inside, and have mocked you, those from the Philistine plain have mocked you, I am going to turn my attention to those who have harmed you." So it's supposed to build them up. Like, "I know they laughed at you, they kicked at you, but now I'm going to deal with them."
Then it says, verse 8: "But for you, but you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come." He says, "I'm going to start to sprout the land and put back the flora and fauna in the land because I'm going to bring the people back."
"For behold, I am for you. I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown. I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, all of it. And the cities will be inhabited and the waste places will be rebuilt. I will multiply on you man and beast, and they will increase and be fruitful. And I will cause you to be inhabited as you were formerly, and I will treat you better than at the first. Thus you will know I am the Lord."
You have to understand why my friends who live in Israel who have come back from the nations are excited to see the land being filled with cities and being rebuilt. When you stand on hillsides and watch that they have planted literally thousands of trees on every hillside, this is them preparing for the rest to come back. And it says, "Yes, I will cause men," verse 12, "my people Israel, to walk on you and possess you, so that you will become their inheritance, and never again bereave them of children."
"Thus says the Lord God, 'Because they say to you, "You are a devourer of men and have bereaved your nation of children," therefore you will no longer devour man and no longer bereave your nation of children,' declares the Lord God."
"I will not let you hear insults from the nations anymore." Do you see the word? Do you see how it sounds like the word "shame," doesn't it? "I won't let you bear the insults of the nations anymore. There's coming a day when I'm going to put all the people back in you, and I'm going to exalt you, and the people are not gonna have this problem anymore."
Verse 16: "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, when the house of Israel was living in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their way before me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity.' That means exactly what you think. Therefore, I poured out my wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land, because they had defiled it with their idols. Also, I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the lands according to their ways and their deeds. I judged them."
"When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned my holy name, because it was said of them, 'These are the people of the Lord, yet they have come out of his land.'" Notice that? That their scattering was a way of people laughing at God because they believed they were chosen of God, but the nations said, "If they were chosen of God, then what are they doing here? How come they don't have their own land?" They believed something that isn't true. And God says, "Yes, it is true."
Verse 21: "I had concern for my Holy Name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went." The Bible says that when the Jewish people were spread out into the nations, they didn't make the nations more holy; the nations made them less holy. They adopted the nations. And today you will see leading some of the most anti-God movements, Jewish people.
Verse 22: "Therefore, say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my Holy Name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.'" Okay, I want you to notice. God didn't say, "I'm bringing back Israel because Israel is better. I'm not doing it because you're good. I'm doing it because of my Holy Name. I made promises to Father Abraham, and I'm going to deliver all my promises. It's because of my Name. I am faithful."
Verse 23: "I will vindicate the holiness of my great Name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,' declares the Lord God, 'when I prove myself holy among you in their sight.'" I'm gonna deal with you, deal with them. I'm gonna deal with Israel, and that's what's gonna the world is gonna see. And as the world hates you, they're gonna see me dealing with you. And then one day, the world's gonna see me exalt you, and they're gonna know that I am the Lord.
Verse 24: "For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land." Do you understand that there is, in this, implied in this return? It is not just about the spirit; it is very much about the land. You keep hearing "land, land, land." Okay?
Verse 25: "So I've got a return." In verse 24, right? Put the word "return" next to it. Next to verse 25, put the word "cleanse." Notice the word "cleanse" comes after the word "return," not before it. "Jews who are not walking with God will return to the land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and will make you clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new spirit, a new heart, and a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." In other words, return, cleanse, renew.
"I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers, so that you will be my people, and I will be your God."
Here's what I want to say. The literal, precise promise is that God's going to bring them back, that the land will be theirs, and that they will become right before God, and He will be their God. Has that ever happened? Has Israel ever, as a nation, come back and fallen before God and been right before Him? No. So either this means nothing, or it means it hasn't happened yet. Those are your choices. So, two-thirds of the church will now say it means nothing. It means it's a spiritualization of how Jesus will come into the heart of a Gentile. If you ask anybody, "What is the New Covenant?" you will get, "Jesus coming into the heart." It will have nothing to do with the land. It will have nothing to do with return or gathering. It will have nothing to do with Israel. We have resupplied the message with an entirely different message, and it's supplanting the original message.
Here's what he says, verse 29: "Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness." Salvation. "I will scatter. I will call for the grain and multiply it. I will not bring again a famine on you. I will multiply the fruit of the tree, the produce of the ground, so that you will not receive again the disgrace." There it is, "shame, disgrace of famine among the nations."
"Then you will remember your evil ways, your deeds that were good, not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations." You're gonna see in Zechariah 12, they're gonna weep because they know that they were the ones responsible for the piercing of the Son. And he says, "I am not doing this for your sake." Just in case you missed it, the last two times I said it, "I am NOT doing this for your sake," declares the Lord. "Let it be known to you, be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel."
"Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited and the waste places to be rebuilt. A desolate land will be cultivated instead of being desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by. They will say, 'The desolate land has become like the Garden of Eden.'" It says the nations are going to notice that the landscape of your land is actually regrading. You're getting gardens where there used to be desert landscapes. You have to look at a picture of what Israel looked like in 1948 and then look at it today, and what you will see is dry desert hillsides have been turned into beautiful gardens.
And it says, "Then the nations that are left roundabout you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken and I will do it."
"Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them. I will increase their men like a flock, like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock of Jerusalem during our high appointed feasts. So will the desolate waste cities be filled with the flocks of men. Then they will know that I am the Lord." He says, "I'm just going to bring people. I'm gonna pack the cities. They're gonna be like, there's going to be as many people milling around the cities as there were lambs on feast day. I mean, it's going to be like unbelievable."
Now, here's the third vision. The third vision isn't 36. I was just giving you a run-up to it to get you the feeling of the consolation. Here's the 37. It is the vision, and the vision itself is in 37:1-14. Now watch what he sees.
"The hand of the Lord was upon me; he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them, around them, and behold, they were many on the surface of the valley, and they were very, very dry."
"He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered, 'O Lord God, you know.'" He took me to a grave site where there's bones scattered all over the place and he said, "See these old dry bones? Can they get up and walk and live?" And he's gone, "Oh Lord, you know the answer to this."
"Again he said to me, 'Prophesy over these bones and say to them, "O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these dry bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back over you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you, so that you may come alive, and you will know that I am the Lord."'"
"So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together." You know, you know the bones coming together, right? The leg bones connected to God, and the bones start coming, a bone to its bone. And bones were just one. And I looked, and behold, the bones started to grow muscles, sinews, and the flesh grew, and the skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Zombies. I cried and I ran. No.
It says, "And he said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, "Thus says the Lord God: Come down from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may come to life."'"
"So I prophesied as I was commanded, and breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army." Apparently, they must have picked up clothes somewhere along the line because he doesn't really mention that part. As he was looking out, the minute it was like an army of nakedness. And he right.
Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are completely cut off.' Therefore, prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have opened up your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,' declares the Lord God."
Says he's going to bring the people back to the land, and after he brings them back, he'll change their heart. I believe we're at that bringing them back, but the change of heart yet. The important thing for us to remember is when you get down to verse 15, you see that God is already at work in bringing the people back.
And then it says, "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, "For Judah and for the sons of Israel his companions." Then take another stick and write on it, "For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his companions."'" Please know that this particular vision is getting torqued all over the Christian world and getting told in many different ways. But clearly, in the verse, what does he say? Who are all the people that the two sticks represent? Are there any non-Jews in that picture? No. All of this has to do with the house of Israel and his companions.
"Then join them to one another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand." Why would he say that? What time period are we in? We're we're out down here at 585 BC. What has already happened? But not only has the nation been split, now both of them have been taken into exile. 586 happened, 585. They're now in exile. So Zedekiah is done, the Northern Kingdom is gone, and 136 years before the Northern Kingdom was lost. And he says, "I want you to write on one stick, Northern Kingdom, Ephraim, and the other one, Southern Kingdom, and I want you to put them back together because I'm going to bring all the Jews, not just the ones that you know where they are."
"When the sons of your people speak to you, saying, 'Will you not declare to us what you mean by these?' say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; I will put them together with the stick of Judah and make them one stick, that they will be one in my hand.'"
You have to understand, I don't know any Jewish people today that actually believe that God is going to reunite both Israel and Judah and bring them all back because the rabbis have long since taught that the Northern Kingdom has been totally lost. They don't know where they are. They're gone. Here's what he says: "And they're gone? I know exactly where they are, and I'll bring them all back. And I don't care whether they were from the North or from the South. I don't care if they went out 136 years before you went out. I still know where they are since I'm the Lord. It's really not a big deal."
But clearly, in verse 19, he says, "I'm going to bring all of them back." Do you understand that for Ezekiel to stand in front of the Judeans who had lost their cousins in the North 136 years before these guys? This is 137 years ago. God is going to find your ancestors and bring them back. They're all gonna go, "You've got to be kidding me. We don't even know where those people are." And his point is, "Yeah, but God does."
Verse 20: "The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. Say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone among them, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land. And I will make them one nation in one land on the mountains of Israel, and one King will be King over them all.'" What's he talking about? He's talking about Messiah. He says, "I am going to regather not just the Southern Kingdom. I'm going to regather Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and I'm gonna bring them back. And you don't know where they are. You think there are 10 Lost Tribes, and I don't care because I know exactly where they are and I'm bringing them all back."
"They will no longer defile themselves by the way." The end of verse 22 is really important. "They will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms." Is this clear enough language for you to say what he's trying to say is, "I'm going to heal the breach between the divided Kingdom and bring them all back, and they'll all have one King"? Does everybody get that? Because I got to tell you, you can go out there and look on the internet, you'll fear some fancy stuff about Gentiles. It's unbelievable because the stick of Ephraim is really the Gentiles that are like the Jews, and they're gonna seriously, I'm telling you, it's everywhere. It's all over the place. Here's what he says: "I'm gonna bring back people you think I lost because I didn't lose track of them." That's all he's trying to say.
And he says, verse 23: "They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or the detestable things or with any of their transgressions, but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned. I will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I will be their God."
The rabbis taught that Ezekiel 36, 37, and really Ezekiel 34, 35, 36, and 37 are the reasons why the rabbis started baptizing. You understand that? You have never heard of baptism in your study of the Hebrew Scriptures, but by the time you get to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, everybody's getting baptized. But you didn't hear any command of God to do that. Where did it come from? It came from Babylon, and it came from these verses because the rabbis believed that the baptism that you needed to have was, "Come back to the land, and then I'll sprinkle water on you, make you clean, and then I'll change your heart. Bring in Messiah, and it'll all be wrapped up." And I think that's what exactly what John thought was gonna happen. By the way, it's exactly what happened. They did come down, John did call them to repentance, Messiah did come, but there was a lot of stuff in between Messiah's first and second coming that John never knew why, because it wasn't obvious. All I'm saying is that these are the passages from which baptism would come.
Let me do one last thing with you before I go, and that's the fourth of the, the fourth of the four visions is actually from chapter 40 through chapter 48. And no, I'm not going to do eight chapters in one fell swoop. What I am going to do is just pick out the theme of 40-48 and see if I can help you understand what the end of this book is about. But I want you to see that in chapter 40, verse 1, you start off with the April 28th of the year 573. This is, by the way, the last prophecy of the book, sort of. There's one more piece, which is actually in chapter 29 and 30, that got stuck in there that actually comes from two years after this, okay? We know it's stuck in there because it's dated. So apparently, Ezekiel had other prophecies that God chose not to preserve. There's one left over from Egypt that they stuck into the section that goes on the, you know, foreign nations, and they just shoved it in there in 29 and 30. But the last kind of organized part of the book is 40-48, and I want you to notice what it's about. This is an essay on worship. I think you'll look at it and you'll think it's all about a temple, but it's not. It's all about the future of worship.
So you get to verse 1: "In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, the fourteenth year after the city was taken, on that same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me there." Okay, where did he bring him? Verse 2: "In the visions of God he brought me into the land of Israel, and he set me on a very high mountain, and on it to the south there was a structure like a city."
So he brought me there, and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze, with a line of flax and a measuring rod in his hand, and he was standing in the gateway. And the man said to me, "Son of man, see with your eyes, hear with your ears, give attention to all that I am going to show you, for you have been brought here in order to show it to you. Declare to the house of Israel all that you see."
Alright, he's he's grabbed again. He's beamed over to Jerusalem, spiritually speaking. Physically, he's still in Babylon. Spiritually, he's in Jerusalem. What he's looking at is he's going to be looking at the area of a new temple. By the time this is written, the other temple had already been destroyed. It was destroyed in 586. This is 573. So there is no temple there. There's the ruins of a temple. But in the one that he sees, he sees an angelic man who has a measuring stick who's running around, and it looks like they're getting ready to build a temple.
Okay, verse 5: "Behold, there was a wall on the outside of the town of the temple all around, and that man's hand was a measuring rod of six cubits." So he had a measuring rod that was six times this. Remember this is a cubit, so it's six times this, which is basically nine feet. Okay? And each of them was a cubit and a handbreadth. So there was a cubit and then this another what, four and four and a half inches, something like that. So he measured the thickness of the wall, one rod, and the height, one rod. Okay? So he takes a rod, and how big is the rod? Six cubits is nine feet plus a handbreadth, so nine feet. Let's say nine feet five inches. Okay? That's the size of a rod. So he measured the thickness of the wall, and it was 95 inches, and the height of it was 95 inches. So you have essentially this big cube-like wall around the city. Okay?
Then he's just giving you this detail of the size of this wall. Okay? And it says, "The guardroom was one rod long and one rod wide, and there were five cubits between the guardrooms and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the city of the gate facing inward was one rod, and he measured the porch of the gate facing inward, one rod. He measured the porch of the gate, eight cubits, and its side pillars, two cubits, and the porch of the gate was faced inward. The guardrooms of the gate toward the east numbered three on one side, and three of them had also the same measurement. The side pillars have the same measurement on each side." And he goes on and on and on like this for verse upon verse upon verse where you're going, "And then this was this big, and then I saw this, and this was this big." And if you needed a picture, somebody actually took the time to draw one.
Here's the thing. Here's what I can tell you in summary. This is a much larger building than the building of the temple that had been there at the time of Solomon. It was a much larger building. So he says, "I look at this, and I see this, and I see that there is an incredible building there." And here's the thing. When you start looking at this, you have a couple of options. What is this? Over the centuries, people have tried to struggle with what these chapters are about. And both Jews and Christians, some people have spiritualized it. What they say is that the whole thing is a view of ideal worship, and there's no literal temple of God. But the problem is all these pesky details about sizes. Really, what does all that mean? Nothing. This is one rod, that's one rod, there's eight, and then there's space, and then there's another chamber, and then there's this. In other words, "one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one." Long worship? Does that sound like the God of the Law who told you if there was mold on the fringe, you had to remove the garment? The God of such incredible specificity gives you not just one page. Keep going. We can go all the way through.
Look at the end of chapter 40. Chapter 40, the length of the porch, last verse, 49: "was 20 cubits, and its width 11 cubits." Good. At the beginning of chapter 41, maybe he finishes. No, he doesn't. In fact, "Then he brought me to the nave and measured the side pillars, six cubits wide on each side, and its width was a side pillar, and the width of the entrance was 10 cubits." And go all the way to the end of chapter 41. Oh, let us see. Does he continue? Yes, he does. Verse 25: "And there were carved on them, and the doors of the nave, cherubim and palm trees, like those carved on the walls. And there was a threshold of wood on the front of the porch of the altar, and there were latticed windows, and the palm trees on one side and on the other, and the sides of the porch. Thus were the side chambers of the house and its threshold." Ah, well, maybe he finishes in 41. No, he does not. Read on in 42.
"Then he brought me into the outer court, the way toward the north. He brought me to the chamber which was opposite this separate area and opposite the building toward the north, and along that length, which was, by the way, 100 cubits, was the north door. The width was 50 cubits." And so you say, "Well, well, Randy, maybe they finished this up in chapter 42." Oh, but they really don't. This goes on for more chapters. He goes down to the end of verse 42, and it says, "He measured it," verse 20, "on all four sides, and it had a wall around it, the length of 500 and the width of 502, divided between the holy and the profane." Does this sound like it's a spiritual vision that means nothing?
So either this is a spiritualized view, or perhaps it's actually something that happens. So some people will go, "Well, wait a minute. Really? This is a view of the temple as it was when it was rebuilt at the time of Jesus." If that's true, all the measurements are wrong. The number of gates are wrong. The number of doors are wrong. The number of pillars are wrong. The decorations are wrong, and virtually everything it says is wrong. So I got a problem. If it's not the first temple, and it's not the second temple, and there's only been two temples, then what are my other options?
Dong, dong, another temple. But here's the thing. Christians have Jesus, and he paid it all. So what do you need a temple for? But see, the millennium's purpose is for God to fulfill to the Jewish people, bringing them back, giving them the King over the throne of David, and showing them what he meant by what he said. And though Jesus paid for sin once for all, most of what happened in the temple isn't about sin at all. It's about celebration, it's about worship, and it's about honoring God because you know that you don't, you're not tempted to. Therefore, dismiss the whole thing.
Now, here's the cool part. Right next to verse 43, verse 1, chapter 43, verse 1: "First Kings 6 through 8, because this will be the vision of the glory of God as he fills the temple." So if Ezekiel saw a temple, here's what he saw. He saw God placing a throne, bringing the people back to the land, and bringing the people back to a temple. My problem with all of this is, if you spiritualize away the Jews in the story, none of this makes sense. None of it. But if the story just means exactly what it says it means, that God isn't going to end time until he brings the Jews back to their land, he changes their hearts, and he gives them another temple.
Now, what's interesting is that there's still sacrifices going on. Why would there be sacrifices? Well, remember, not all of them have to do with sin. But also, in Hebrews, we saw that idea that if Messiah were standing there and he were asked, "Would you go into the temple even though you've paid for sin?" He would say, "I would stand there at the altar and say, 'Look at this lamb, and what a picture he is of what I have done.'" In other words, sometimes the temple was supposed to foreshadow Jesus, sometimes it was supposed to pronounce what Jesus already did.
And when you look at first chapter 43, go to 43 for a second. It says, "Then he led me to the east gate, to the gate I was facing to these." And you know, it's very funny. I got used to reading this in one version for so many years, and this version, the New American Standard, I still insert the old words from the other version. Anyway, verse 2: "And behold, the glory of God of Israel was coming from the way of the east." What's the way of the east? What was east of Israel? I mean, Jordan is east of Israel, but what's east of that? The Fertile Crescent? Mediterranean? I mean, Fertile Crescent, the Mesopotamian areas of Iran, Iraq. And he says, "I'm gonna bring them back from Babylon. I'm gonna bring them back from all over." He says, "Then he says, and his voice was like the sound of many waters." Who's talking? Who sounds like many waters? God. Okay? "And the earth shone with his glory." So God is drawing the people, calling them from all over.
"And it was like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision which I saw when and he came to destroy the city, and the visions I saw when I was at the river Chebar, and I fell on my face. I realized it was God." So I've been standing here watching this guy measure all these walls and call off measurements, and after a couple of chapters of that, I was standing around going, "Yeah, that's kind of great. I'm really glad to see there's really a baby temple." Why would that be important to Ezekiel? Why would a big huge temple be important to Ezekiel? Yeah, and the temple that he so loved was actually not good, and it was destroyed. But this one's beautiful. It's bigger, its pristine, its huge, it's got profoundly beautiful carvings all over the temple.
And he steps back, and then he says, "If that wasn't cool enough, then God came, and I've seen him before, so I knew. I knew it was him. I saw his glory coming." Verse 4: "And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate facing toward the east." Why is that important? Because that's where it left from. That's exactly how he left in 8 through 11. That's that he left to the east. He went out to the Kidron Valley, and he left to the east, by the way, the Kidron Valley is also called the Valley of Jehoshaphat, or the Valley of God's Judgment. He left at the Valley of Judgment and returned in the same place.
"And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and behold, the glory of God filled the house." I want you to see that's exactly what you see in First Kings 6 through 8 when the smoke filled up the temple and the glory of the Lord filled the place in front of Israel. Now it's not happening in front of Israel; it's happening in front of Ezekiel. He's getting to see it.
"Then I heard one speaking to me from the house, while a man was standing beside me. He said to me, 'Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile my Holy Name, neither they nor their kings, by their harlotry or by the corpses of their kings when they died, by setting their threshold by my threshold and their doorposts by my doorposts with only the wall between me and them. And they have defiled my Holy Name by their abominations which I have committed, so I have consumed them in my anger. Now let them put away their harlotry and their corpses of their kings far from me, and I will dwell among them forever.'"
"As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities, and let them measure the plan. If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the house, its structure, its exits, its entrances, all its designs, all its structures, and all its laws, and write it in their sight so that they may observe the whole design and all its statutes and do them. This is the law of the house. Its entire area on the top of the holy mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house."
What's he saying? Did you catch it? It's not a trick. You read the law. This isn't a law you've ever seen. Ezekiel just essentially added to the code of law. What was it that he added? This is the plan. I want you to build it exactly as I tell you. It's never been built. This is what you're holding in your hands is the plan of the next temple, and it's a law of God that you build it exactly that size and shape, and you do it exactly where I tell you. In other words, God says, "Ezekiel, give them all the details. They're gonna again sin, they're gonna again defile my name, but when their heart is finally broken, and when they finally want to follow me, they'll understand that this is what they're supposed to do next, and this will be the law."
Did you know that I could take you to a place in Jerusalem where they are already training priests how to kill lambs? Where you can already see the casting for the menorah for the great lampstand? Where you can go to a school if you are Jewish and you are a Cohen of a priestly family, and you can learn to weave the cloth of the tunic that belongs to a priest? All of those things exist right now. I can take it to them. So what you're seeing is not only that, but look at this. There's going to be an altar of sacrifice, and the whole specification of it is in verses 13 to 17. And there's also going to be a specific way in which they're going to operate the various offerings that they have to operate, and those are given to them. And there's also a specification for who runs the place, who polices it in chapter 44, and how the land is divided up by the people who have to oversee the temple in chapter 45, and the way in which they're going to collect the taxes for the coming time of the kingdom. All that's been specified. These are rules for a time that hasn't happened yet.
But here's an interesting thing. Go down to 47. Ezekiel 47: "Then he brought me back to the door of the house, and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house toward the east, for the house faced east, and the water was flowing down from under and from the right side of the house, from the south of the altar." He brought me out by the way of the north gate. He led me around on the outside to the outer gate, by way of the gate that faces east, and behold, water was trickling from the south side. He's starting to see a river forming in Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem doesn't have a river on the surface. There is one, but it's underground. We know it's there geologically. We get water from it, but it's below ground. Something happens to the geology that breaks the ground in Jerusalem that causes the water to come to the surface. You don't know what it is yet, but you doubt what that event is.
In Zechariah, when Messiah comes, in Zechariah 9 through 12, he steps down onto the Mount of Olives, and it divides the landscape, and the crack produces a river, and Jerusalem gets a river, and the river flows in Zechariah all the way down to the Dead Sea, and the Dead Sea, that has been going down, down, down, goes up, up, up, and it becomes a living body of water. It's dead now because it's settling in the level of salts is going up as it evaporates, but when the water pours in, it'll go the other way.
And here's what it says. He measured, verse 4, "He measured a thousand and led me through. He measured it." I gotta go back to that verse 3. I'm sorry. "When the when the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits. He led me through the water, water reaching the ankles. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, the water reaching his knees. Again, he measured a thousand and he led me through the water, and the water was reaching his loins." What he's doing is he's taking the rods and taking him further down the valley, and the further down he goes, the bigger the river becomes, the deeper it becomes. So it started off ankle-deep, and it's knee-deep, now it's loin-deep.
And it says, again, verse 5: "He measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded." In other words, I couldn't stand up in the rushing water anymore. It kept sweeping me down. So he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen this?" Then he brought me back to the bank of the river.
"Now when I had returned, behold, the bank of the river was there, many other trees on the one side and on the other." Then he said, "These waters go toward the eastern region and down into the Arabah, which is the the landscape there's a desert that is in the depression just south of the Dead Sea, and that's the Arabah. It's a it's a dry desert gully. It looks sort of like Death Valley." Okay? And he says, "Do you see this? He says, 'Have you seen this? It's going down into the Arabah, and then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea became fresh water.'"
You're talking about the Dead Sea, which right now is being harvested for salt and for chemicals. But he says, "So much water will come in, it will make the water no longer a salt water, but like the Jordan. It will become, it'll push the salts and minerals back and become a living base of water." In the north basin of the Dead Sea, it will become. "They will come about that their that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes will live. There will be many fish." We're talking the Dead Sea. There's not a fish in the Dead Sea. If when you go to Israel with me, we'll go to the Dead Sea, you can lie on your back and read a newspaper in the Dead Sea like you're on a raft, except for you're not. The water is so viscous, it's about the thickness of baby oil when you feel it. But actually, the viscosity is so high that when you lie down in it, you can just lie on top of the water, which is a very strange experience. You can drown in the Dead Sea with basically two teaspoons of water because if you get that stuff in your lungs, you can't get it out, which means you never, ever, ever dive into the Dead Sea. If you get a drop of that water in your eyes, you will walk on the water all the way out. Okay? If you shave your legs the night before, you will find that every nick has life, and you will know of its life. Okay? It's a it's a it's a great experience. Everybody should do it once. Okay? Yeah, everybody should go in the Dead Sea. You got to do it. You got to do it. I mean, yeah, but that's, but it's just a cool experience, you know? I mean, you've never been in water where you just couldn't just lay there. I mean, that's just fun. Anyway, it's something I'll get you to do, and I'll watch.
Verse 10: "And it will come about that the fisherman will stand beside it, from Engedi to Eneglaim, there will be a place for the spreading out of their nets. The fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the great sea, just like the Mediterranean." The Dead Sea will have fish in it. Now, what we don't know is, is this connected to another sea? Is there a canal cut? What happened? We know is that water is pouring through Jerusalem according to what he sees, and that it's fresh water, and that the fish are down by the Dead Sea. And so what I want you to see is he says, "But its swamps and its marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt." That's a good detail. The salt gets pushed away from it. It doesn't leave. It's not all fresh water. "Marshy land in which the salt pans." And basins are pushed back. In my view, the north becomes fresh, the south becomes salt pans. By the way, the south is where the salt pans are, where we normally stay at the spa hotels, and you can get a good massage because my massage guy is there. At any rate, verse 12: "By the river on its bank and on one side and on the other will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because of their water flowing from the sanctuary, and the fruit will be for food and for their leaves for healing." What does that sound like? Garden of Eden.
Let me give you some other verses that look just like that. Go to the end of Revelation, and you will see that there was a river running through the center and trees on both sides for the healing of the nations, and they bear fruit each month in their time. In other words, John mentions this exact thing. The rest of the vision has to do with the boundaries and divisions of the land that were put together and where the priests live, because once they start up the land again, they have to cut the land up, and they have to give some to the Levitical priests, which means the priests are operating.
Alright, what's the last, last message of the book? What is 40 through 48 about? What I want you to understand is what it's about is that God is going to be worshipped again in his land. He's going to bring the people back. He's going to get a sanctuary back. It's going to have a landscape that is going to again have a specific size building. Listen, if everything God said concerning the coming of Messiah in his first coming is literal, then why are we not willing to accept that this is literal in his second coming? So here's the thing. If you are a graduate of GCBI and you learn these details, you could be an architect for the Third Temple. You could walk in and say, "Excuse me, excuse me, a little bit to the right there. That that goes another rod over, please. Thank you." And you could build this thing. God gave incredible specific directions. There you go. Why would he do that? This doesn't mean anything to the church. No, it doesn't. It's for the guy who has to build it. It's the law of the house. By the way, it's called the law of the house, like because it's the law of the house. You don't need it. They do. And on the day they need it, it's already written. Just like a lot of Revelation that isn't to you, it's to whoever's in it. They'll understand some things. You want to understand about? I don't have to. To you.