Middle East Meltdown 005 – Ezekiel 36

The Middle East Meltdown 005 – Ezekiel 36

By Dr Andy Woods – 01/30/2022

Ezekiel 36:33- 37:8

Alright you all! Let me open us in a word of prayer and we’ll get started. Father, we’re grateful for today, grateful for the weather, grateful for the fact that you are the same yesterday, today and forever and we do pray, Lord, that you would use Your word today in Your church to minister to Your people. People are in all kinds of different places in their walk with you and so I pray that you would speak directly to them exactly where they are through Your word. Give us a word of encouragement, give a word of correction, whatever it’s going to be, we just pray that you’ll get your way and that will leave here changed people and we’ll be careful to give you all the praise of the glory we ask these things in Jesus’ name and God’s people said, Amen.

Alright! Well, good morning everybody! If you could take your Bibles and open them to the book of Ezekiel chapter 36, and verse 33 (Ezek 36:33).

Ezekiel 33‒48

1. Ezekiel recommissioned (33)
2. False shepherds removed (34)
3. Edom destroyed  (35)
4. Israel’s restoration: physical & spiritual (36)
5. Israel’s restoration illustrated (37)
6. Means of restoration: Northern invasion (38)
7.  Results of the Northern invasion: conversion (39)
8. Millennial Temple (40‒46)
9. Tribal land allotment (47‒48)

Once we hit the New Year, we started a new study called the Middle East Meltdown, which is basically a study of Ezekiel, 36 through 39, the chapters and the reason we’re focused on those chapters, are those are probably the chapters of the Bible that are in play right now in terms of God setting the stage aggressively for the end time’s drama. So after giving a kind of an overview of the book Ezekiel, we start in chapter 36, which is the famous chapter of Israel’s physical and spiritual restoration in the last days.

Ezekiel 36

1. Israel to prosper again (Ezek 36:1-15)
2. Israel’s sins inhibiting prosperity (Ezek 36:16-21)
3. Israel to be restored: physically & spiritually (Ezek 36:22-38)

So you can divide this chapter up into three parts: Verses 1 through 15 (Ezek 36:1-15) are Ezekiel’s prophecies given by the way, two thousand six hundred years ago that Israel would prosper again. That’s verses 1 through 15 and then verses 16 through 21 (Ezek 36:16-21) is the sins inhibiting that prosperity. But once those are dealt with, then we have verses 22 through 38 (Ezek 36:22-38) where it gets back into prophecies of Israel’s restoration not just physically but spiritually. So Israel will prosper again, verses 1 through 15, here is what’s holding things up verses 16 through 21 from God’s perspective and then you have that tremendous end time description of Israel’s restoration. 3:18

So I think we left off last time with verse 33 (Ezek 36:33) and I’m hoping to finish the chapter. I mean, there’s only five verses, right? Or six or seven, it depends on what math you are using these days. I mean, who couldn’t finish six or seven verses, I mean, you know. Alright, and then if time permits, I’d love to get into chapter 37 or at least lay the foundation for chapter 37. So notice verse 33 (Ezek 36:33): Thus says the Lord GOD… Now, you have to pay attention to that marker, cause that’s the way to divide this chapter or this section up. You might recall back in verse 22 (Ezek 36:22), it says: Thus says the Lord GOD… And if you jump down to verse 37, chapter 36 (Ezek 36:37): Thus says the Lord God… So whenever there’s that kind of literary marker like that, it’s a clue that another sort of oracle or another major movement in the prophecy is about to unfold. So verse 33 says: Thus says the Lord GOD, On the day that I will cleanse you from all your iniquities… So God has more in mind than just a physical restoration of a people to a land. He wants to spiritually cleanse them… I will cause all the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. So cities are going to exist where they didn’t exist before. Waste places won’t be waste places anymore in the land of Israel. If you go back to verse 10 (Ezek 36:10), it was the same prediction. He says in verse 10 (Ezek 36:10): I will multiply men on you, all the houses of Israel, all of it; and the cities will be inhabited and the waste places will be rebuilt… And once that happens, the time of desolation for Israel will be a thing of the past.

Verse 34 (Ezek 36:34): The desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passes by… And I’ve shared with you before this quote by Mark Twain, who visited the land in 1867, that was long before the national rebirth of Israel, the modern state of Israel in 1948, and I like to use the quote because it shows you what Ezekiel was talking about. Ezekiel says, what is desolate will be made fruitful; and when Mark Twain visited there in 1867 and wrote about it two years later in his book “Innocents Abroad” 1869 that’s exactly how he described the land. By the way, this quote will never show up on CNN, because CNN and MSNBC and all the rest of them, want you to believe that Israel went into that land and displaced a thriving population and they want you to believe that because they want you to believe that Israel is illegally occupying someone’s look at someone else’s land, because the whole name of the game in the international community is to force Israel to give away territory in exchange for peace after all that’s fair cause Israel stole someone else’s land; and when you look at this Mark Twain quote there was no thriving population for Israel to displace.

Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad, Complete, 1st ed. (A Public Domain Book, 1869), 267, 285, 302. These quotes can be found in chapters 47, 49, 52.

“… A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse…. a desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action…. we never saw a human being on the whole route…. there was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

He says in 1867 as he toured that area:  A desolate country… Actually almost the same identical choice of words that you find there in verse 34 (Ezek 36:34)… A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse… a desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action… And look at this next line… we never saw a human being on the whole route… There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country… And when Israel was evicted from the land in AD 70 by the Romans and went into what’s called the diaspora, two thousand years of worldwide dispersion, the land became desolate; and in fact, that’s what God predicted would happen, because my understanding of prophecy is that that land can’t prosper unless God’s people are in it. That’s God’s design. 8:41

So all the way back in the time of Moses it was predicted in the book of Leviticus chapter 26, and verse 43 (Lev 26:43): For the land will be abandoned by them, and make up its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them… So Israel in the land, prosperity, Israel out of the land, desolation, Israel back in the land, prosperity and that’s how God has designed it. You see the same thing in Ezekiel, 38, and verse 8 (Ezek 38:8) which is a chapter we’ll be getting to in the series eventually. Ezekiel says: After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them… So as long as you’re out of the land, it will be at a place of waste and desolation. Once you go into the land it will prosper again. If you look back at verse 3 (Ezek 36:3), it predicts this same desolation with Israel out of the land. It says: Therefore prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord GOD, For good reason they have made you desolate… There’s that word again… and crushed you from every side, that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations and you have been taken up in the talk and the whispering of the people… So all these prophecies are predicting, not just restoration but before that desolation, and that’s what Mark Twain was seeing. But, oh my goodness, once Israel goes back into the land, it’s going to become just like the garden of Eden. You say, where’s that predicted? In the next verse, verse 35 of Ezekiel, 36 (Ezek 36:35): They will say, This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited… This is a fascinating prophecy which predicts that once Israel is restored to her land, that land would become so flourishing, it would be just like the garden of Eden. Now, you remember the garden of Eden prior to the fall and, you know, that lush paradise that the Lord put our forebears in;

and you’ll remember the four rivers that are described in Genesis, 2, the Pishon and the Gihon and the Euphrates and the Tigris, it sort of gives you the impression of an agricultural paradise there in the garden of Eden;

Divine Judgments (Gen 3:14-19)

• Serpent (Gen 3:14-15)
  • Serpent’s body (Gen 3:14)
  • Protoevangelium (Gen 3:15)
• Woman (Gen 3:16)
  • Painful child birth (Gen 3:16a)
  • Relational conflict (Gen 3:16b)
• Man (Gen 3:17-19)
  • Painful labor (Gen 3:17-19a)
  • Death (Gen 3:19b)

and of course, everything changed with the fall of man in Genesis, 3, because in Genesis, 3, God pronounced a curse on the serpent, then He pronounced a curse on the woman, then He pronounced a curse on the man; and why does He deal with them in this order? Because the serpent sinned first, the woman sinned second, the man sinned third; and so as God is dealing with each of the culprits of original sin to each of these three in order, He says two things. What did He say to the serpent? (1) Your body is going to be changed. You’re going to crawl on your belly, which is sort of… when you track that imagery down in the book of Micah, for example, it’s a sign of humiliation; and (2) To the serpent, your head is going to be crushed one day. There’s coming a savior who will crush your head, of course, we’re unpacking all of that in our teaching verse by verse through the book of Genesis. So Satan, the serpent, is told right at the beginning he’s on the losing side of history and then God deals with the woman. He talks about painful childbirth, Genesis, 3, verse 16 (Gen 3:16), and then He talks about conflict within marriage. I’m glad that never happens today. People say, pastor! I’m having conflict in my marriage, and I’m like well of course you are, that’s what God said would happen. There’s a power struggle in every marriage and the only escape from it is Ephesians, 5, verses 22 through 33 (Eph 5:22-33). If two people in a marriage are not committed to walking out Ephesians, 5, verses 22 through 33, all there’s going to be is quarrelsome conflict until your dying day. Assuming your marriage even lasts, because our sin did not just damage our vertical relationship with God, it damaged our horizontal relationships with each other including the most intimate relationship a human being can have which is the marital relationship. So the woman would desire the man and that, I don’t think is interpreted correctly by many as romantic desire. Desire means to control, to dominate. That is the basic posture of a woman in original sin in marriage. That’s the beginning of feminism. The woman basically is not going to respect the man’s place of authority in the marriage. The man in turn is going to resent that and he’s going to trample down the woman, and that’s the beginning of Chauvinism. So Chauvinism and feminism it all starts right there in Genesis, 3, verse 16 (Gen 3:16) and the only way out of it is Ephesians, 5 where a man is told to love his wife as Christ loves the church. If a man is walking that out, that’s the answer to bulldozing his wife and trampling right over her. That’s the answer to Chauvinism and the woman is to respect her husband and submit to her husband as she submits to the Lord, that’s the answer to feminism. So if two people, and this is the disaster of being unequally yoked, marrying someone that’s not a believer, because if let’s say, hypothetically, a young woman marries a man, a young man that’s not a believer, his natural instinct is going to be to be Chauvinistic and unless he has a relationship with Jesus and a growing relationship with Jesus, he has no basis for understanding how he is to relate to his wife, because you relate to your wife the way Jesus relates to us and it’s the same with the woman, if a man marries an unsaved woman, she’s not going to have any idea about how to submit to his authority, because the whole instructions Paul gives in Ephesians, 5, is the woman is to submit her to the authority of her husband as unto the Lord. So we went into a lot of this when we were in Genesis, 3, but the woman, painful childbirth and there have been many many deaths of the mother in childbirth in world history. In fact, we’re going to get to Genesis, 35, at some point, I hope, in our Sunday morning studies and you’re going to see an example of it right there in the text. So that is a reality now because of the fall and relational conflict is a reality now because of the fall. God is not saying, this is what I want. God is just saying, this is the way it is, cause sin brings consequences. 17:36

So to the serpent God says two things, to the woman God says two things. He speaks to the serpent first because the serpents sinned first, He speaks to the woman second because the woman sinned second; and then He deals with the man third cause the man sinned third and there He begins to talk about painful labor, in this case work. You will no longer work for joy. You know, prior to the fall, man was working, he was tilling the garden, etc., and his survival didn’t depend on it. But now with the fall, things are different. You have to work to survive. You have to work by the sweat of your brow and by the way, once you get to the end of all of that, you’re going to go right back to the dirt from which you came. Any other happy thoughts for the day. Death now becomes a reality. So when this text here, verses 35, talks about Israel becoming like the garden of Eden again, basically what it’s predicting is a time period when the effects of the fall are going to be dramatically curtailed. They’re going to be dramatically rolled back and the only place this fits is the millennial kingdom for one thousand years, because when you read Isaiah, 65, around verse 20 (Isa 65:20) it talks about people dying at the age of one hundred and when someone in the millennial kingdom dies at the age of one hundred, people are going to kind of sit around and say isn’t it a tragedy that such a young man died at such a young age? Because as the lifetime of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. So, lifespans in the millennial kingdom are dramatically increased. Almost like it was prior to the flood, you know, in Noah’s day. So only in the millennial kingdom do you get Jesus ruling on David’s throne and the effects of the fall start to get rolled back, they start to get curtailed; and it’s not until you get to the eternal state, after God destroys this world by fire, that death itself doesn’t even exist anymore and the effects of the fall are totally done away with. 20:18

So the truth of the matter is we as human beings have made a total mess of things and God has us on a trajectory, where our spilled milk, so to speak, is going to get cleaned up and that’s what we call Christian hope. This is why we have hope. We’re like the only world view out there, that I know of, that says what’s happening now won’t always be. You talk to someone that believes in reincarnation, for example, or you get into some of the eastern mystical religions and their philosophy basically is what’s happening now, has always been and will always be, and gosh! What happens to hope if that’s true? Hope disappears. I think that’s why John in Revelation, 5, is crying when he sees the seven sealed scroll, it’s in Revelation, 5, around verse 5 (Rev 5:5) and He, at first glance in this vision, doesn’t think anybody is worthy to open it and Revelation, 5, around verses 5, and 6 (Rev 5:5-6) describes John just starting to cry. Why are you crying John? Because if nobody opens the seven sealed scroll, which is the title deed to the earth, then the earth just continues on in its current state, and I would cry too, if that was the prospect. But the biblical worldview teaches there was a time when evil didn’t exist, with all of its consequences, that’s Genesis, 1, and 2 and there will be a time in history when evil will be completely done away with. Revelation, 21, and 22, the millennial kingdom is just kind of the foreshadowing of that and so this is what makes our thinking different than other worldviews. Other worldviews basically tell you that what is happening today is normal. It’s always been and it will always be. Christianity comes along and says, no! What is happening today is abnormal, it’s completely abnormal, it’s outside of the design of God. If you want to know what normal is, study Genesis, 1 and 2, that’s normal, and study Revelation, 21 and 22, that’s normal. Everything in between is an abnormality and that’s why we can walk through this life with hope. If we didn’t have this worldview what hope would we be walking in? What hope would we be offering to the world? And so verse 35 then is simply a description that Israel, the time in history will come where she will regain Eden like conditions; and it’s a prophecy that the effects of the fall are going to start to get rolled back by God at some point; and I would argue this, that this prophecy, at least to a limited extent, is already being fulfilled or starting to be fulfilled, because when you compare Mark Twain’s quote, that I gave you earlier, “a desolate country” and compare it to today, and these numbers aren’t even up to snuff cause this is from 2005,

but you can see just going back to 2005 and you look at Israel’s gross domestic product, I mean, you can see very clearly how it outstrips all of her neighbors, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and so we’re actually living in a time period where we’re starting to see this prophecy come to fruition; and that’s why the Islamic forces that surround Israel want her land. They want her land because of the wealth. In fact, that’s going to come up in Ezekiel, 38, where it’s going to give the motive for the attackers in the last days and it has to do with Israel’s wealth. The world community wants you to believe the nations that surround Israel want to divide up Israel cause they displaced a population. That is false. That is a lie. What they really want is the money. You know, follow the money, you know, as we like to say, and they also want you to believe that Jerusalem is a holy site in Islam, they want you to believe that. They want you to believe that the Jews went into the land and they displaced a thriving population, false; and they want you to believe that Jerusalem is a holy site in Islam, false. Why do we think it’s false? Because the name Jerusalem doesn’t even show up in the Quran. Jerusalem the name shows up in your Bible eight hundred times. It doesn’t show up a single time in the Quran and suddenly when Israel came back into the land and the land began to prosper, the Muslims had this, you know, kind of new teaching that, Oh! Well, that’s the part of the world where Muhammad ascended back to Allah on a steed and the steed’s name, guess what the name is, the steed’s name is Barak. So, I can’t make this stuff up as I go, it’s just unbelievable; and if that’s really a holy site of yours, how come it’s not in the Quran? Well, they added to their religion at that point, because really what they’re interested in is the wealth, the wealth that God says would accrue to Israel once she went back into that land. That’s the motivation for the attack. It has nothing to do with a thriving population that Israel displaced. It has nothing to do with the fact that Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam. It historically is not, that’s a new innovation. It has everything to do with wealth and money and we’ll see more about that in Ezekiel, 38, when this invasion from the north, spearheaded in the north, takes place. 27:14

Going down to verse 36 (Ezek 36:36), it says: Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken and will do it. So God’s name, once all is said and done, is going to be vindicated again amongst the nations, because only God can predict this restoration and actually pull it off. So who in the end gets glory? Glory to God, who said he was going to do all these things. You go down to verse 37 (Ezek 36:37) and it says: Thus says the Lord GOD.. So it’s sort of a little prophetic oracle at the very end here. That’s our marker that we saw in verse 22 and 33… 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… So it’s speaking of the repopulation of the nation and if you go back to verse 8 (Ezek 36:8) you remember that that was predicted earlier in the chapter. It says: 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… I can’t remember the exact date this happened, it’s in the two thousands, you could probably just do a Google search and track it down, but at a certain point there were more Jews living in Israel than were living in a combined sense in the rest of the world. I think Israel has crossed that line or perhaps is about to cross that line and when you hear things like that, they’re more Jews living in Israel, then are all combined living anywhere in the world. That’s a fulfillment prophetically of verse 37 (Ezek 36:37), where God says, I’m going to bring you back into your land and I’m going to dramatically increase your population and how populous will Israel become in this final restoration? It’s there at the end of the chapter verse 38 (Ezek 36:38): Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feast days, so will the waste cities be filled with flocks of men. Then they will know that I am the LORD… In fact, Ezekiel here gives it as an analogy, that Israel is going to become so populous, it’s going to be like it was during special feast days. 30:30

Deuteronomy, 16, verse 16 (Deut 16:16) all the way back in the time of Moses, commands the Jews to show up at the central sanctuary to celebrate the various feasts, three of which were mandatory that they had to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate these feasts; and it says: Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place He chooses… Now, Moses says that because Israel had not yet regained Jerusalem, that wouldn’t happen until the time of David, but now that Jerusalem is in Jewish hands, we know where that central sanctuary is, it’s the city of Jerusalem… Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, they are not appear before the LORD empty-handed… And when the nation of Israel celebrated those feasts in the time of Christ, prior to AD70, you want to talk about a packed house, because Jews from all over the known world would show up on the day of Pentecost. Josephus tells us that in the city of Jerusalem there could be more than one million Jews there, on that particular feast day, to celebrate the day of Pentecost. Acts, 2, verses 5 through 13 (Acts 2:5-13) talks about Jews from all over the known world coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost, it’s just this time around God had a surprise for them Acts, 2, because He use Peter’s sermon in Jerusalem to launch the church.

Think about a million people jammed in a city to celebrate these various fees going all the way back to Leviticus chapter 23 and three times a year they had to do this;

and having been to Israel myself, our tour guide kept warning us as we were going from place to place, he kept using this expression “the maddening crowds”, because it’s like wall to wall people and I don’t really do well in those kind of circumstances over long periods of time. I mean, it’s hot and it’s crowded and it’s sort of a test of the fruit of the spirit within you, as you deal with some of that stuff. But, you know, even him using that expression “maddening crowds”, you know, I’m thinking of myself verse 38, that’s what verse 38 predicts. This is what God said He would do. 33:33

So there is Ezekiel, 36 for you in a nutshell. I don’t know if it’s in a nutshell, it took us five weeks to get through that. But now as time permits we go to Ezekiel, 37, where we move from point to picture.

Ezekiel 33‒48

1. Ezekiel recommissioned (33)
2. False shepherds removed (34)
3. Edom destroyed  (35)
4. Israel’s restoration: physical & spiritual (36)
5. Israel’s restoration illustrated (37)
6. Means of restoration: Northern invasion (38)
7.  Results of the Northern invasion: conversion (39)
8. Millennial Temple (40‒46)
9. Tribal land allotment (47‒48)

We move from concrete reality to metaphor; and as if the point isn’t clear enough, now Ezekiel and his prophecies concerning Israel’s physical and spiritual restoration, says, as the Holy Spirit is allowing him to see these things, let’s give now two illustrations of what we just spoke of in chapter 36 and those two illustrations are given in chapter 37:

Ezekiel 37

1. Vision: Valley of the Dry Bones (Ezek 37:1-14)
   1. Vision (Ezek 37:1-10)
   2. Interpretation (Ezek 37:11-14)
2. Sign: Two Sticks (Ezek 37:15-28)
   1. Sign (Ezek 37:15-17)
   2. Interpretation (Ezek 37:18-28)

It’s the valley of the dry bones, verses 1 through 14 (Ezek 37:1-14) and then there’s the vision of the two sticks coming together. So that they make up a single stick and you see that in verses 15 through 28 (Ezek 37:15-28). Now there’s a place in Israel called Masada. Have you heard of Masada?

I believe that Masada, if I have it right, was a Herodian sort of fortress. I think it’s a place where Herod actually took his vacations and when the nation of Israel was dispersed out of the land in AD70, there were a group of them that would not submit to Rome and they kind of took over Masada and it was sort of like the last stand, if you will. They would rather die than live under Roman rule and when it looked as if the Romans we’re going to win, which of course they would, because that’s what Jesus said. Jesus said your temple is going to be torn apart brick by brick, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. So when they did this, they were sort of on the losing side but they were freedom lovers, they went into Masada and basically said, we’re not going to come out here, you’re going to have to come and drag us out because we would rather live in freedom than live as a Roman slave; and there was a group of them that took over this place called Masada and it’s a place that you can actually visit today in the land of Israel.

There is a tram that will take you all the way to the top and then there’s like a hiking trail that you can go on to climb to the top and it’s no easy walk and so which one do you think I took? Well, I took the tram. Angela, is she here today by the way? There she is, she said, I’m going to hike to the top and we said, well you just knock yourself out, I’ll see you up at the top with Gatorade in hand. But how long did it take you to hike up that? Well, let’s look at her, Oh, no problem at all, thirty seconds. You know, I get tired in the tram, she’s like, ah! Thirty seconds got to the top and she’s like half the size of me, you know, she’s got short legs.

So there’s Masada and there we are at the top, sort of enjoying it, and that’s kind of what it looks like. But it’s very interesting that when you go into Masada and you get the tour, there’s a synagogue in Masada.

The Masada synagogue and they have discovered beneath the floor of the synagogue Hebrew fragments found buried under the scroll room under the floor and what happened at Masada turned into a mass suicide, when you study this out in Josephus.

The Jews knew they were going to lose and they said, okay let’s all kill ourselves and the last guy took an oath after he killed the second to last guy, to kill himself as well; and that’s how serious they were about we’re not going to live under Roman law, we would rather die than live under Roman law. Kind of like Patrick Henry, right? In America, give me liberty or give me death. That’s pretty much what was happening in Masada and this archaeological find is very interesting because it shows you what they were reading, these Jews, as they were taking this last stand and about to commit suicide. There’s fragments, a few verses from Genesis, there’s a few verses from Deuteronomy, there’s a few verses from Leviticus and Psalm, 81 and Psalm, 50 but there is like a very clean, unbroken scroll that goes from Isaiah, 35, verse 11 through chapter 38, verse 14 (Isa 35:11-38:14), which covers the chapters we’re reading here, chapter 36 and 37. In other words, this is what they were reading prior to or as they were taking this last stand, knowing that their lives were going to be gone through suicide and it’s interesting that this is a section they’re reading because they were trusting that God in His providence would recycle them back into their land one day and they would be a free and independent nation once again. 39:40

So, I mean, what are the verses that you would read just before death? You know, Psalm, 23, John, 3:16, you know, knowing that you’re going to die. This section here, chapter 36 and 37, is what they were focused on. So these chapters in Judaism are a big, big, big deal. It’s tempting for us to just read over these and not grasp their full import and their significance but the scroll under the floor of the synagogue in Masada shows you how valuable that these Hebrews taking their last stand attached to these verses that we’re looking at right now.

Ezekiel 37

1. Vision: Valley of the Dry Bones (Ezek 37:1-14)
   1. Vision (Ezek 37:1-10)
   2. Interpretation (Ezek 37:11-14)
2. Sign: Two Sticks (Ezek 37:15-28)
   1. Sign (Ezek 37:15-17)
   2. Interpretation (Ezek 37:18-28)

So you have the valley of the dry bones and you can outline it as the vision is given to Ezekiel verses 1 through 10 (Ezek 37:1-10) and then an interpretation is provided in verses 11 through 14 (Ezek 37:11-14), the first of the two illustrations. But both of these illustrations are illustrating what was spoken of in chapter 36 as we’re moving from point to picture. So notice, if you will the vision of Ezekiel, verses 1 through 10; and notice, if you will, Ezekiel, 37, verse 1 (Ezek 37:1): Then the hand of the LORD was upon me… So, it’s a different vision now that’s coming… And He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD… In other words, it’s sort of like John, in Revelation says, In the Lord’s day I was in the Spirit, it’s the Holy Spirit that’s showing Ezekiel these things two thousand six hundred years ago… The hand of the LORD was upon me, and 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.… and set me down in the valley; and it was full of bones… So it’s like God picks up Ezekiel in this vision and just plops him down in this valley where there’s nothing but bones, totally disconnected from each other, sort of strewn all over this valley. So we call this the valley of vision and what Ezekiel saw was this valley full of dead men’s bones and then he says in verse 2 (Ezek 37:2): He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry… Now, dry is interesting because it communicates death. I mean, they were just dry, more on that as we progress, they were just in this kind of hopeless decaying, you know, position; and I, to be completely honest with you, it’s hard for me to read this without thinking of the Jews in the Holocaust and all of the, you know, we’ve seen all the footage and photographs, they’re just in the sort of emaciated state and they’re in a totally helpless condition, unless God does something, that’s what Ezekiel saw. Totally helpless, totally hopeless, dry, hope is gone, no optimism for the future, nothing but death, unless God does a work, unless God does a miracle; and so verse 3 (Ezek 37:3) God asks Ezekiel a question. He said: He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?… And I love Ezekiel’s answer… I answered, O Lord GOD, You know… I have no idea Lord, if they’re going to live or what’s going to happen here, if anything, but you know. 43:55

So Ezekiel, you know, he doesn’t really, you know, come across like a pompous philosopher, pompous theologian pretending like he knows everything that’s going to happen. He just sees death and he’s asked the question, can these bones live? And his point is I really don’t know but you know, because you’re God. Charles Feinberg concerning Ezekiel’s answer writes in his Ezekiel commentary, which I would highly recommend to you, along with his Zechariah commentary which were leaning on Wednesday evenings.

Charles L. Feinberg – The Prophecy of Ezekiel: The Glory of the Lord, Paperback ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1969; reprint, Chicago: Moody, 1984), 213.

“In order to emphasize the hopelessness of the situation from the human point of view, the Lord asked Ezekiel whether these bones could live. Ezekiel’s answer revealed that it would require a power beyond man’s to bring this about. It was an answer of reverence, not giving a positive or negative response.”

Charles Feinberg says: In order to emphasize the hopelessness of the situation from the human point of view, the Lord asked Ezekiel whether these bones could live. Ezekiel’s answer revealed that it would require a power beyond man’s to bring this about. It was an answer of reverence, not giving a positive or negative response… By the way, John said the same thing concerning the vision that he saw of the great harvest of souls coming out of the tribulation period thanks to the evangelistic ministries of the hundred and forty four thousand, that’s in Revelation, 7, verses 13 and 14 (Rev 7:13-14) it says: These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from? I… That’s John… said to him… I think that’s one of the twenty four elders… I John said to the elder, My lord, you know. And he said to me, These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb… You know, I don’t know Lord but you know. Ezekiel says the same thing. Can these bones live? I don’t know, but you know.

So you look at verse 4 (Ezek 37:4) and then Ezekiel is told to do something: Again He said to me, Prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear… The human perspective, didn’t say that, does it?… O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD… Now, I don’t know why this is with God but God for whatever reason works in an environment or in an atmosphere where his truth is being consistently and faithfully proclaimed. If you look at verse 9 (Ezek 37:9), for example:  Then he said to me prophesy… In other words, preach. You look at verse 10 (Ezek 37:10): So I prophesied… You look at verse 12 (Ezek 37:12): Therefore prophesy… And God in His sovereignty has chosen to work in the hearts of people in an atmosphere or in an environment where His word is consistently proclaimed. This is also a New Testament principle, because prior to Paul’s death, he wrote to Timothy in 2nd Timothy and gave him his final instructions and you know what those instructions are. 2nd Timothy, 4, verse 2 (2 Tim 4:2): Preach the word; be ready, in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction… I was reading one Greek scholar and he said, there are twenty seven commands in 2nd Timothy. In other words, Paul at the end of his life, because he said, I’m about ready to be poured out, as a drink offering, he’s ready to die, you know, the torch is being passed to Timothy, the pastor of the church at Ephesus, there are twenty seven things that Paul commands Timothy to do, eighteen of the twenty seven, two thirds, deal with the ministry of the word. Whatever you do Timothy, you better make sure that you are teaching and preaching and proclaiming God’s revealed truth, because I have sovereignly chosen to work in an environment where my word is being proclaimed. That’s why here at Sugar Land Bible Church, the main ministry is the pulpit. Listen to me very carefully, I didn’t say the main ministry is me, because one preacher can be replaced by another. The main ministry is the pulpit. If that is not an active ministry, then everything else is in vain. Other ministries are vital but we will refer to them as ancillary ministries. They are designed to support the main ministry, which is the proclamation of God’s truth through the pulpit and it’s amazing to me how many churches get out of order on this, they focus on this ministry over here, this ministry over there and you’re looking at their pulpit and there’s no consistent proclamation of truth. That is a church without power, because God has sovereignty chosen. This isn’t my plan, this is how God works. God has sovereignly chosen to work in an environment where His word is being proclaimed. It doesn’t matter how big or prosperous your other ministries are if you don’t have the proclamation of divine truth through the pulpit, you don’t have what God wants; and so, our focus here has been to build up, not a speaker but the pulpit. The pulpit needs to be in the center, the pulpit needs to be the life blood of the church, because if that disappears, then you just have a bunch of other things going on, they’re nothing but mere human activities; and so, you see this emphasis here on proclamation. In other words, God says when you start proclaiming, I’ll start moving. I will start working. 50:46

So he goes on in verse 5 and he says… And by the way, before I leave that subject, if you want a good book on this, get the book by Martin Lloyd Jones, I read it, you know, as a fairly young Christian when I was aspiring to go into ministry. I don’t agree with all of the theology of Martin Lloyd Jones, you know, he’s more Calvinistic reformed than I am, but he wrote an amazing book called “Preaching and Preachers” where he talks about this issue and he talks about the decline of the pulpit in the church. He says, even look at the architecture. How the pulpit many times is over the side somewhere. You know, it’s not in the center and he says, you know, there’s so much time spent doing everything else… I call it sort of a dog and pony show… where there is almost no time at all. This is Martin Lloyd Jones in this book saying, there’s no time for proclamation, there’s no time for preaching and in this particular book he warns about becoming a media ministry, because once you go on media you have to be confined to these little twenty five minute segments and he says, the fact to the matter is the spirit of God might take you longer than twenty five minutes. I think he does that a little bit here, Amen? And he warned about trying to fit the church onto some kind of media, TV, radio, and I’m not against Christian TV, Christian radio, but I’m just telling you what Martin Lloyd Jones was warning about. This would go back to the late fifties, early sixties, he was warning about the decline of the pulpit, he goes through a historical analysis about the decline of the pulpit and the book is an amazing book, it’s called “Preaching and Preachers. It’s one of the few books I’ve ever read that I think captures the heart of God on this subject of proclamation. 53:07

So Ezekiel is told to prophesy over the bones and say to them, O dry bones hear the word of the Lord, and then you go to verse 5 (Ezek 37:5) and God starts to work. So you notice that Ezekiel is told to prophesy and then God in that environment of proclamation of truth starts to move His hand in the vision. Verse 5 (Ezek 37:5): Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath… now that’s very different than dry, isn’t it? That’s to be contrasted with dry…. breath to enter you so that you will come to life… Life is different than dry. Life is different than death and he continues to work and God says and of course, this is a vision that, I think, we’re starting to see fulfilled in our day and will increase. It says: I will put sinews on you… That would be like muscles and things of that nature… I will make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive… So sinews, flesh, skin, followed by breath itself and then life and God says: When I do this… End of verse 6 (Ezek 37:6)… You will know that I am the Lord… Because only God can take death and turn it into life. There should be absolutely no doubt in anybody’s mind in the world today that God is at work, because of what’s happening in the Middle East, which is just a foretaste of things to come. Jesus said in John, 13, verse 19 (John 13:19): From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He… And then he says in John, 14:29 (John 14:29): Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe… And I’m asked quite frequently by different people interested in apologetics, why do you believe the Bible is God’s word? What is your proof? This is my number one proof. Yeah, we can go another proofs about the preservation of scripture, the resurrection, how that can be provable, but to me the dominant proof that the Bible is true, is the Bible speaks things before they happen and then God moves His hand in history to fulfill what He said. I don’t know of any other alleged holy book that even comes close to what you’re holding in your hands here. The very breath, dare I say, the very saliva of God. 56:13

Now he says something very interesting in verse 7 (Ezek 37:7). He says:  So I prophesied as I was commanded… Good move, Ezekiel. You ought to do what you’re told, particularly when God tells you to do it. See, there’s so many places where God gives an instruction and we don’t follow through with the instruction. Oh! I don’t want to build a church around the proclamation of his word. We want to build a church around a marketing philosophy. Okay, well you just disobeyed what God said. Ezekiel didn’t disobey God; he did exactly what God said, because he knows he’s in a place of humility, he knows, gosh! Can these bones live? Lord, you know. I don’t know, you’re the boss not me… So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied… Now, watch this, cause this is missed in a lot of commentaries… There was a noise… And if that weren’t enough to communicate the idea, it goes on in verse 7 and says: …behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone… So suddenly these bones come together, they’re strewn all over the valley of vision and they come together in such a way, think about this, and they form this skeleton and notice that there is no breath in the skeleton yet and as the skeleton is being assembled, Ezekiel says, it’s noisy and it’s rattling and I think what God is saying here in verse 7 is, when I start to put the skeleton back together again which is going to be the nation coming back into their own land in unbelief, it is going to be so loud and it’s going to be so noisy, that no one can ignore what’s happening. You might be able to deny the hand of God in it, if you’re that crazy, but you can’t deny that it’s happening cause this is loud, this is noisy; and the noise, I think, continues in Zechariah’s prophecies where it says (Zech 12:3): It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all nations. All who lift it will be severely injured and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it… It’s like an albatross around the neck of the world community that’s heavy and the more you try to move it the more you’re actually going to injure yourself in the process. You can come up with some weird scenario that God is not doing this, but you can’t ignore that it’s happening. Zechariah, 14, verse 2 (Zech 14:2), similarly God says: I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle and it goes on.

This is a very noisy, noisy, loud, clamorous process and that’s exactly what you’re saying in your newspapers, because the United Nations meets around the clock and when you look at the resolutions they pass, the number one issue they’re trying to figure out is this one right here. What are we going to do with this? How  are we going to bring peace to this region? Because we got a bunch of people in a land that those nations in green, through propaganda have told everybody that that’s our land; and they meet and they pass resolutions and they debate and they get all hot under the collar and if you watch some of these UN speeches, they yell at each other and it’s happening in our newspapers all the time and you should read that and you should say, well, that’s what Ezekiel said. When the skeleton starts to come together, it’s going to be something that the whole world is going to be focused on. It’s going to be so loud that you can’t ignore it’s happening. I mean, the Muslim countries, they can’t ignore it’s happening. Israel, it’s happening too and our oil, you know, sadly, because of now, energy dependence instead of energy independence, cause they nixed through executive order the Keystone pipeline, because our oil comes from that part of the world, we have to pay attention to this process and keep everybody happy and that’s what Ezekiel said would happened. I mean, it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be rattling, it’s going to be clamorous and you can’t ignore it. 1:01:16

You look at verse 8 (Ezek 37:8) and it continues to describe the re-gathering and it says: I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them… So not only do we have a skeleton but we’ve got muscles. Not only do we have a skeleton but we’ve got skin. But look at the very end of  verse 8: But there was no breath… The Hebrew word translated breath is Ruah, which essentially means “Wind” and it’s used many times in the Bible to describe the Holy Spirit. It’s a nation that just came back together after two thousand years of dispersion, yet it’s in unbelief and I was sitting in a church, this is actually the reason that Anne and I decided to leave this church in the Dallas area, where they brought in a missionary speaker who basically told everybody, that the current state of Israel is not the work of Isaac but it is the work of Ishmael. Now we’re studying Ishmael in our Sunday service, the product of human works and this guy, as a Christian, okay, as an alleged missionary started to go on and on about how it’s the Zionists that have propped Israel up, started to go on about how it’s a Jewish conspiracy and all this kind of stuff and his basic argument is of course God is not at work in that land today, because they’re a bunch of unbelievers over there and the reason we decided to leave the church over that issue is because Genesis, 12, verse 3 (Gen 12:3) I think it’s pretty clear. Those who bless Israel are in turn what? Blessed. Those who curse Israel, are in turn what? Cursed. It’s just a matter what side of the ledger you want to be on; and the guy’s whole point collapses when you look at verse 8 where it talks about a skeleton with muscles and skin that God put together, but the breath isn’t in it yet. So God Himself said the regathering is going to happen in two phases. I’m going to bring them back in unbelief first, that’s the obvious interpretation here; and then the time will come when I will put breath into the body or the Ruah. So that’s the unique time period that we’re living in between. We are living in between the skeleton, skins and muscle but no breath yet. We are living right in the middle of a prophecy that God two thousand six hundred years ago said He would do and is there another time in human history that you would want to be alive than this one? I mean, this to me is exciting stuff. This to me is like the ultimate apologetic that Christianity has to be true because of these prophecies and look at that, I’m five minutes over.

Father, we thank you for this truth. I pray you’ll make us good stewards of this in these last days. Help these things to minister to your people. We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and God’s people said, Amen. Happy mini intermission.