Restoration Complete
|
Key Verse: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” Selected Scripture: |
WHEN THE PEOPLE OF Israel were living in their own country, they defiled it by their evil deeds. They polluted the land with idols and God exercised his wrath on them, pouring out his fury by scattering them among the nations. (Ezek. 36:16-19) “When they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went.”—vss. 20,21
Because Israel had disgraced God’s name, he said, even though they didn’t deserve it, his proposal was to take them back home again from their exile to bring honor to his name among the nations. In symbolic words he told them, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.—Ezek. 36:25-28
Some time later “the hand of the Lord” carried Ezekiel in the “spirit of the Lord,” and set him “down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” (Ezek. 37:1) God questioned the prophet, “Can these bones live?” to which he responded, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” (vs. 3) God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to come together, and finally, “the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.” (vs. 8) So Ezekiel prophesied as God commanded “and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”—vs. 10
Again, a message from the Lord came to the prophet instructing him to take a stick and write upon it, “For Judah”; take another stick and write upon it, “For Joseph [Israel].” “Join them one to another into one stick; … Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, … and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation … and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, … Neither shall they defile themselves any more, … wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.”—vss. 16-23
We are now seeing the fulfillment of these prophecies step by step. The opportunity to buy and own land in Palestine was made possible in 1878. The Rothschilds bought land and the new Zionist organization offered free land to anyone willing to come back and settle it. This was in fulfillment of Jeremiah 32:43,44. At that time control of this land was by Turkey of the Ottoman Empire. This endured until World War I. The League of Nations then gave a mandate to Great Britain to supervise the land until 1948, when the United Nations divided the land and the nation of Israel was born. No longer are they to be pulled out of this land.—Amos 9:15