???????? I'm not quite sure what one is to learn from this reading. Yes, I get the fact that the Lord God can do ANYTHING. But the whole measurement thing. I guess I just don't understand the importance of knowing the measurements of a Church. And please...I do not mean to offend anyone by this. I just don't understand.
Hey Doug, it does feel like dry reading sometimes, doesn't it? There is a lot of interesting stuff going on here, though, you just have to dig for it.
Ezekiel starts in chapter 37 with a prophecy about a valley of dead bones. God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, and as Ezekiel does it, "there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together... tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them" (37:7-8). Then, at the LORD's command again, Ezekiel prophesies "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live." And "they came to life and stood up on their feet - a vast army" (37:9-10). This valley of bones, and what has just happened to them, is supposed to be symbolic... and God explains it, saying "these bones are the whole house of Israel" (37:11). He promises "I will bring you back to the land of Israel... I wll put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land" (37:12, 14).
God tells Ezekiel to take two sticks and to right the name of Judah on one and of Ephraim (a son of Joseph) on the other, and then to bind them together. The kingdom of Israel had been split into two nations (Israel and Judah) after Solomon's reign as king, and God is promising to unite them again. "I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms" (37:22).
Many Christians believe that this prophecy was fulfilled in 1947/1948, at least in part, with the creation of the nation of Israel. Certainly, the Israelites were given a homeland again after all of those years being scattered, but the prophecy also says "I will gather them to their own land,
not leaving any behind" (39:28). I think that this is sort of where the Zionist movement comes from, with proponents of Zionism not just supporting the nation of Israel, but hoping to have all Jews immigrate there. Also, Scripture makes the point clear the Israelites will be saved "from all their sinful backsliding" (37:23) and "will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees" (37:24). As a result, many Christians believe that the second part of Ezekiel's vision in the "valley of dry bones" has yet to be fulfilled. In other words, the Israelites may have been given skin and flesh again, but there is still no breath in them.
The significance of all of this is that it's supposed to take place before all of the other end-time prophecies can be fulfilled. It can be difficult to discern, however, what things are to be fulfilled before everything else will be set into mission. Ezekiel also says God "will make a covenant of peace with them... an everlasting covenant" (37:26). God adds that "My dwelling place will be with them" (37:27) and it reminds me a lot of what we see about the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, but that won't happen until after Judgment... so that definitely brings about some more questions.
In any case, Ezekiel turns his attention to "Gog, of the land of Magog" (38:2) and spends the next to chapters prophesying against him. I've read that a lot of people believe this refers to Russia, prophesying that they will attack Israel from the north. "In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel" (38:8). Russia may well fit the bill: "You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you" (38:15). The prophecy says that "you will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land" (38:16), and then gets into some interesting imagery about how Israel will be protected from all of this.
At the end of this, Ezekiel sees another vision of a new temple. These are where all of the measurements you're talking about come into play. It's more than measurements, though. Ezekiel spends three entire chapters describing every nook and cranny of this place with all kinds of details that seem obscure and are tedious to read through. The measurements do matter, though. The Bible gives measurements about all kinds of things. I mean, check out Exodus... God gives the Israelites very specific instructions about how to build the Ark of the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting, and later he gives instructions to Solomon on how to build the temple.
Here, before Ezekiel starts having these measurements read off to him, he's told "Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with you ears and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see." We know that the temple was destroyed a long time ago, and so it seems to me that Ezekiel was told to tell Israel about all of this because God expects them to build this thing! He wants it to be a certain way, right down to the cherubim carved into the walls and the leaves hinged to the double doors with all the palm tree decorations. We might not be able to draw some profound spiritual understanding from how many cubits thick each wall is supposed to be, but maybe the point is that sometimes we don't understand
why things have to be a certain way. Instead, we learn that we do not and cannot know everything, but God never asks that of us. He just calls us to obedience.
