Does Ezekiel add to the Millennium Composite?
Yes, he does. (In fact, if we include his nine chapter description of the coming Millennial Temple and its environs … this Prophet contributes a lot to our knowledge of this coming Age of Glory. That would be chapters 40 through 48, inclusively.)
But for this morning … let’s particularly read Ezekiel 11:17-21. It truly describes a “conversion.” (Some teachers call it a “reversal.”) And I know of no other place to locate this “miracle” than the end of the Tribulation/Beginning of the Millennium timeframe.
“17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. 19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: 20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.” Ezekiel 11:17-21, as indicated earlier.
Verse 17 is a sermon unto itself! God regathering Israel and giving them the Land! The Holy Land, the Promised Land! (From the “river of Egypt” to the Euphrates, and extending westward to the Mediterranean Sea! According to Genesis 15:18 and Numbers 34:6.)
Then verse 18 shows Israel (her people) in the act of repentance. Cleaning up their lives! And their Land, apparently … “They shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.”
Verse 19 is the greatest miracle, I think. where God promises Abraham’s seed: “I will put a new spirit within you.” A reference to the Holy Spirit of God, to soul salvation. (Our King James Version does not always capitalize the noun “spirit,” even when referencing the Godhead.) By the way, this is what happened to each of us when we were saved as well. The Holy Spirit “within!” Praise the Lord!
Now in verse 20 … the “fruit” of this great “salvation event” … Ezekiel tell us: “They will walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Obedience!
Relationship!
Millennium!
But what if a (relatively speaking) few do not obey? An occasional rebel? (Maybe a little bit like “Judas” among the Twelve.)
Verse 21 … “But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.”
Apparently not all hearts will be sincerely devoted to Christ. For at the end of the Millennium, we learn: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Revelation 20:7-10, too much Scripture to be a “Proof Text,” but I know of no other way to present this sobering fact.
Probably this crowd is a cadre of people born during the Millennium who have not totally submitted to Jesus! And yet people who have not been tempted of the Devil for all that 1,000 years! (The Devil having been incarcerated, chained!) What an illustration of the “old sin nature” born within humankind!
Yes, I’d say God will “recompense” them!
His Fire of Judgment “devouring” them!
And thus ends one of Ezekiel’s clearest “snapshots” of the coming Millennial Reign, one aspect of it anyway.
Let’s read it one more time: “Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.”
A little more easily comprehended this time, to me at least.
Until tomorrow, and some Ezekiel again …
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
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