Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 37-39
Today’s reading brings with it a note of optimism and pleasure as Ezekiel is shown a valley of dead bones! Maybe in some way this is descriptive of the world in which I live! – Dead bones – dead people! Ephesians 2 says my world in which I live is inhabited by people who are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) Not sure how Ezekiel would have felt when he is told that the bones of which it could be said “our bones are dried up and our hope is gone…” would be breathed on – the Lord says “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land”! So Ephesians for us parallels the idea – “made us alive together in Christ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ.” Formerly – people without hope and without God – now made alive, having the Holy Spirit and eternal life! Does this seem unreal, as Ezekiel’s vision must have seemed to him? But what God says is always TRUE!
And then the vision of two sticks being joined together again and made into one nation like they always should have been, except for discipline being needed to punish them for their sinning and just going their own way! So like Ezekiel, I am comforted to know that the people of God, the Church, today, which is certainly scattered and broken as far as being ONE, like Israel and Judah, will be made one again – not too long from now, Christ will come again and call His Church to heaven to be with Himself and to be at the marriage of the Lamb (not a single truly born-again Christian will be missing at that great event! All the nations will know in looking at how blessed Israel is in the future, and so the whole world will know at that time that He has made us holy just like He will make Israel holy once again. We truly have hope not only for this world but for the new heavens and the new earth in the future that will be His sanctuary – those closest to Himself! – Because we deserved it? Never! But because “God is RICH in mercy, and because of His GREAT love with which He has loved us!” (Ephesians 2:4)
I love the parallel between Ezekiel’s message and what the Bible tells us will happen in the future. Evil will be dealt with once and for all by God. There will be a NEW heavens and a NEW earth wherein DWELLS righteousness! And sin and death will be destroyed forever by Jesus casting them into the Lake of Fire with the devil and his angels!
I think Ezekiel in his prophesying must have been filled with a sense of wonder and hope at being told of such a wonderful day coming! I know that we have every right to be looking forward to such a wonderful day coming! I was thinking this morning, “someday I will burst into heaven (whether that is through death or being caught up by the Lord when He comes), and I will realize for the first time how very real and wonderful is the reality of the things that we only hope for in this our monotonous daily life on earth!
May you and I be buoyed up today with God’s wonderful certain hope becoming reality, maybe today?