Ezekiel 30

A true understanding is that God is energy.

But he will read in Ezekiel, or we will read in Ezekiel 30, 20, or that God will call the sword while he says, my sword shall go out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north.

Now, God would use Nebuchadnezzar as his sword.

Rashi believed that God knew that the nations would rejoice over Israel's calamity.

J. Paul Tanner says of this in his paper Rethinking Ezekiel's Invasion by Gog, quote, "We need not expect chapters 40 through 48 to chronologically follow chapters 30 through 39, since these chapters are part of a separate vision." If you take the dates of Ezekiel's 13 visions and put them in chronological order, it would look like this.

Ezekiel 1:1, Ezekiel 8:1, Ezekiel 20:1, Ezekiel 24:1, Ezekiel 29:1, Ezekiel 26:1, Ezekiel 30, verse 20, Ezekiel 31, verse 1, Ezekiel 33, verse 21, Ezekiel 32:1 and 17, Ezekiel 41 and Ezekiel 29:17.

You will notice that three of the visions are not in chronological order, and more importantly, that Ezekiel 29:17, which is about Egypt being conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, was written later than the prophecy of the millennium that begins in Ezekiel 40.

A simple understanding of the nature of the book of Ezekiel would prevent anyone from building doctrine based on the order of the visions in Ezekiel.

And I remember the first thing for me that kind of started to... where the Lord began to start intimately speaking like, "No, this is for y'all," is I was at the church, and I usually would get there early for worship practice, go through, just spend time with the Lord.

And I was in the, the kitchen reading my Bible, and I'm in John, and the Lord's like, "I want you to go to Ezekiel 30:10." And I'm like, "Okay." So I turn there, and it's like, "And I, uh, will destroy Nebuchadnezzar and the idols." And I'm like, "W- uh, that wasn't God." [chuckles] I'm like, "What does this have to obtain to anything?" I felt the Lord was like, "Keep reading." And I get to verse 13, and it says, "And I, the Lord, will destroy the idols and the images of Memphis." And I'm like, "What?" Like, I, you know, 'cause Memphis is originally, uh, it means city beautiful, but it was the, uh, the capital of Egypt back in the day.

And so I didn't know it was in the Bible.

And I'd always joke 'cause people are like, "You know, if you ever need to really know God's speaking to you, like, get in the Bible." And I'd be like, "Okay, yes, like that's, uh, we know His character, but, like, it's not gonna specifically say, you know, 'Move here, do this.'" And so when I read that, it was almost like the Lord's sense of humor, like, no, like, it, it's there, [chuckles] it's there for you to go.

So basically, you could s- you could take the Sabbath and say Sabbath from creation to the Exodus, separate them from David to Nehemiah, and you could observe from De- from David to Nehemiah how we have a degradation and less, and more complaints and more murmurings and less celebrating.

And from Nehemiah to Christ, as you start to kind of get to the close of the Old Testament, you begin now to see it's, it's on a l- a, a level that is unprecedented, where almost every prophet, Jeremiah 17, Jeremiah 20, Ezekiel 20, Ezekiel 30, all the chapters 30 i- in the 40s of Ezekiel, all have lament about the people not caring about the things of God, giving lip service, basically flipping God off, okay? So when we get-- We have that four hundred years of intertestamental period, and people say there was silence.

There was not.

Much was written during that, during that period, including if one would pick up the book of Maccabees that tells us about the Maccabean rebellion and Judas Maccabees.

[clears throat]

... 'cause he wasn't understanding some things about Ezekiel 30.

I said, "Look, I, I believe it all happens the same day." I think the rapture, the, the ending of the Ezekiel 38 war, which could happen very soon-

It could

So I think that's a, a clue given, and I'm-

Yes

... we're taking too much time on this, but I think that's a clue in Ezekiel 30, 38 and 39-

Yeah

Hello and welcome to Thought for October 4th.

Our readings are 1 Chronicles 18-19, Ezekiel 30, and Galatians 5-6.

Our thought is, Only faith working through love.

The word faith is special to the New Testament.

But what's going to happen? I will put hooks in your jaws.

And it says in Ezekiel 30, verse 8, And after many days, you're going to come to a land that is brought back from the sword and is gathered out of many people.

against the mountains of Israel.

And so there it is, clear as day.

September 27 2 Samuel 23 Galatians 3 Ezekiel 30 Psalm 78, verses 40 through 72 Galatians chapter 3 could usefully occupy us for an entire book as long as the one on which this devotion is based.

But here I shall restrict myself to two observations.

First, in the first five verses, Paul appeals to experience.

So I never picked up on that verse there.

Um, Ezekiel 30 verse three for the day is near.

The day of the Lord is near a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

Um, Joel 1 verse 15, Alas for that day, for the day of the Lord is near.