September 12: Ezekiel 46-48

September 12, Ezekiel 46-48

Ezekiel finished… Congratulations on reading through Ezekiel with me! Nice work. My prayer for you has been that you would see clearly that there are only 2 teams. - God’s team and not His team & that if you are on His team, you will live like it regardless of life’s circumstances…

Ezekiel 46 God continues to reveal the rules for the new temple. We learn more roles that the priests will have, hours of operation, what and when on offerings and some feasts and festivals and inheritances. As we have discussed before, God is a God of detail and the details matter to God. God showed Ezekiel where the places were for the offerings and the location of the kitchens where the priests will prepare the food for the people.

Ezekiel 47 The tour continues and we learn about the water flowing from the Temple. What starts out as a stream leads into a river that will be filled with fish and life. It will flow into the Dead Sea and on its banks will be trees and their leaves will be used for healing. In essence, this will be a life giving stream (Both the Prophets Joel & Zechariah talk about this too). From Halley’s Bible Handbook, “Whatever specific or literal application these waters might have, certainly, without an straining whatever, the can, in a general way, be taken as a beautiful picture of the benign influences of Christ, coming out of Jerusalem, and flowing forth, in an ever-widening, ever-deepening stream, to the whole wide world, blessing the nations with their life-giving qualities, on into the eternities of Heaven.” I do not think that is too far of a stretch as we know the Old Testament points to Jesus in the New Testament. 

Then God discusses the divisions of the land among the tribes and again God makes provisions for the non-Jewish people as He will have them also be a part of His people. 

Ezekiel 48 God breaks down further the divisions of land for His people in the future by tribe. The book of Ezekiel ends with a future peace and hope…

To sum it all up: 

• God cares about details, including your life. Your life is part of His plan, therefore the details in your life are not to minuscule for Him to care about and guide. 
• In a sense, we are the non-Jewish people that God wants to be a part of His people (unless of course you are Jewish, which I am not). The New Testament refers to us as Gentiles…