epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Monday, June 02, 2008

Ezekiel 36

There are times when the Lord addresses inanimate objects as if they were persons. Sometimes they are called to be witnesses to something that someone is saying or doing. Here God speaks to the mountains of Israel, as if they needed relief from the evil talk of the nations or the sinful activity of God’s people. We hear of this kind of thing when the Lord’s speaks of giving rest to the land through the exile of the people, since Israel would not follow the Sabbath year regulations. The Lord loves even the mountains of Israel, and will defend them from outside attack or the corruption of the inhabitants of the land. Why does God speak this way? Perhaps we are reminded of God’s special purposes for every detail of creation. Everything has a role to play, and it is all moving toward a good end. In the case of the land of Israel, through God’s care for the land we are reminded that we will one day be in a place of new creation. God loves the land of heaven, and He will not allow any enemy to destroy it. This is a comforting thought.

God has no intention of giving up his land to the Edomites, or to any other power. He is jealous for this place. It is not for these other nations to take what is God’s. Yes, the Lord has disciplined His people, but He has not abandoned His purposes. It will not be up to the world to be a guardian of heaven. The Lord will speak for His own land.

God’s purpose for the land is not to make it a nature preserve or a wildlife refuge. He will bring His people back into the land. There He will once again fill the land with both man and beast. Something about this promise seems to go beyond the present age. Yes, God will bring back some exiles from Babylon, but will He do more good in Canaan than He has ever done before? Will the land be a place where the children of Israel do not die? It seems more likely that God is using the prophecy of a time of blessing to capture the imagination of the people about a coming day which is more than they can ask for or even imagine. If that is the case, then we have here the first hints in Ezekiel of something that will eventually be indisputable. A visionary time of blessing beyond this life is being revealed to those who will hear and believe. This is done using the places and practices of the Lord’s Old Covenant people, but the final fulfillment of these words goes far beyond their day. There is an exciting day of new creation life coming for the land and for the people of the kingdom.

This day will be so much better than the former days of glory in Israel. In that day there was so much sin. They made the land unclean. God disciplined them for their deeds. He cast them out of the land, and dispersed them among the nations, and the nations spoke against God’s people. In the lands where they were dispersed they were a poor testimony to the Lord’s holiness and power, for they continued to profane His name.

The Lord will defend His own holy Name. This is a more fundamental motivation than even His love for His people. He saves His people for the glory of His Name. He does not glorify His Name in order to save His people. The nations will know the glory of the Lord. This is a very good thing, and God will surely do it. For the glory of His Name, God will bring about the kingdom of heaven and He will populate the land with a renewed citizenry, people who have renewed hearts and spirits that are alive. He will cleanse us from above, and He will put His Spirit within us. The Lord has begun to do this through the church, but one day we will see the fullness of this wonderful work in the land of resurrection. He will make that place to be a land of unparalleled prosperity and fruitfulness. There will be no famine there. This must be something more than the land of Israel in the New Covenant era. Remember the account of the famine described in Acts and Paul’s letters? There is something of heaven here to be sure. God will bring us the fullness of repentance and resurrection life. Ruined places will be rebuilt, and the people will grow in great number. This is a vision that is greatly to be sought. These are things that we are told that we can ask God for, and God will do them for the glory of His Name.

The Lord is not stingy with His plans. The Israel of God that the Lord has planned for at the return of Christ is not a place of scarcity. Scarcity is a part of the current age. Now we have great needs. We have disease, decay, and death, but this will not always be the case.

Such a big blessing requires a very new order of things. We cannot accomplish such great things without resurrection bodies. Our mortality must put on immortality. It will not do for us to slug along in bodies that face the ravages of disease with household budgets that are often in deficit spending, and hearts that are sad for unknown reasons. These facts are a part of the current creation which is groaning under the weight of the fall and the curse.

There is an answer to all of that groaning. Christ has entered this current age in order to suffer the weight of the wrath of the Father for us. He groaned under the penalty that was due us for our rebellion, and He accomplished our salvation. The greatest display of His victory came through His resurrection. He is in a most unusual situation at present. He is the one man in the condition of resurrection immortality in this current age. He is the proof of the age to come, together with the gift of His Spirit living in the hearts of those who have been called by Him. Through Him we rejoice with abundant joy, as we lay hold of the age to come by faith in His sure Word. We who believe in Him are eager to walk those glorious mountains to come. All of the Lord’s promises will be fulfilled. His Name will be glorified. We will be loved and kept forever. The fact of resurrection is not for us to doubt. It is ours to believe.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM

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