Promises of Renewal

KEY VERSE: “A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will l put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” —Ezekiel 36:26

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Ezekiel 36:22-32

THROUGH the Prophet Ezekiel, the Lord indicates that the beginning of the national resurrection of Israel is prior to the time when their spiritual blindness is removed. This is shown especially in Ezekiel 37:14, where the whole house of Israel is likened to a valley of “dry bones.”

In the resurrection of these bones, a three-phase action is indicated. First, the bones come together—“bone to his bone.” Then they are covered with sinews and flesh. And finally, they are given breath, life. Accompanying these developments there is a noise, a shaking, and then the blowing of four winds. It is out of the four winds that life comes to what is said to be the whole house of Israel.

These three phases of revival seem to coincide with the three major spasms of the time of trouble with which the present evil world comes to an end. The first of these spasms was the World War which started in 1914. As a result of this, there came a rustling, as it were, of Israel’s bones.” Palestine was partly opened up to them; many returned, and the reclaiming of the land began. Out of the second global struggle came the sinews and the flesh—the new state of Israel was formed.

But still there is no ‘life’. ‘Breath’ has not yet been given to Israel. In keeping with the sequence of events as outlined in verses thirteen and fourteen, we could say the Lord has now opened their national graves (event one), has brought them up out of their graves (event two), but has not yet put his Spirit into them; so as yet they do not have life. And it is not until all three of these steps in their revival have been accomplished that they will know the Lord, and will recognize Jesus as their Messiah. A detailed description of the last phase of the great time of trouble is presented in chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine of the same prophecy, and here also we find that not until this final phase occurs, and in it the Lord delivers his people from their enemies, will their spiritual eyes be opened to know him—“So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward.”—Ezek. 39:22

This same last phase of trouble is referred to in Revelation, chapter sixteen, as Armageddon, and is described in Revelation 7 as the letting loose of “four winds.” It is during this time, as shown in Ezekiel’s prophecy, the Lord will fight for the Israelites who have returned to their land, the eyes of many nations also will be opened, and as the Lord declares, “They shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezek. 38:23) Thus we have the assurance that the time for the blessing of all; nations will then begin, with the Israelites living in Palestine being the first to have blessings offered to them.

This does not mean, however, that the present government of Israel will be brought into the earthly phase of Christ’s kingdom. While Israelites in various stages of unbelief are now being gathered to Israel in keeping with the divine plan in order that they might be the first to whom kingdom blessings will be offered, none are to be considered by God as part of, or even supporters of, or associated with, the earthly phase of the kingdom except as they shall first recognize Christ Jesus as the Son of God, their only Redeemer and Deliverer. The human representatives of the spiritual kingdom of the Lord will be the resurrected Ancient Worthies.—Ps. 45:16

These Ancient Worthies will occupy a position of preferment above the world, having attested their faith and love during the reign of evil, in a manner approved by God. Thus they were prepared, and proved worthy to be the earthly ministers and representatives of the spiritual kingdom.

Through the agency of these princes, representing Christ, the Mediator, Israel will be brought back into covenant favor with the Lord. Unlike their previous covenant experience, which left them with stony hearts—a fact well represented by the tables of stone in which its commandments were inscribed—the New Covenant will change their hearts to those of submissiveness to God and the restoration of the fine qualities of his own image, which God had originally created in the human heart of flesh.

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