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Jimmy DeYoung: Ezekiel 38 War – Nations mentioned in the Bible
God’s Promises For Israel’s Restoration
Texts
Jeremiah 31:31-34 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Notes: MacArthur Study Bible (Everybody should own a MacArthur Study Bible)
Jeremiah 31:31–34 a new covenant. In contrast to the Mosaic Covenant under which Israel failed, God promised a New Covenant with a spiritual, divine dynamic by which those who know Him would participate in the blessings of salvation. The fulfillment was to individuals, yet also to Israel as a nation (v. 36; Rom. 11:16–27). It is set 1) in the framework of a reestablishment in their land (e.g., chaps. 30–33 and in vv. 38–40) and 2) in the time after the ultimate difficulty (30:7). In principle, this covenant, also announced by Jesus Christ (Luke 22:20), begins to be exercised with spiritual aspects realized for Jewish and Gentile believers in the church era (1 Cor. 11:25; Heb. 8:7–13; 9:15; 10:14–17; 12:24; 13:20). It has already begun to take effect with “the remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 11:5). It will be also realized by the people of Israel in the last days, including the regathering to their ancient land, Palestine (chaps. 30–33). The streams of the Abrahamic, Davidic, and New Covenants find their confluence in the millennial kingdom ruled over by the Messiah.
Text
Ezekiel 3 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Ezekiel’s Commission
1 Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” 2 So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.
4 Then He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. 5 For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, 6 nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you;7 yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. 8 Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9 Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.” 10 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.
CONSIDER THE HOLINESS OF GOD (VS 11-14) THE LORD GOD; THE SPIRIT; THE GLORY OF THE LORD; THE HAND OF THE LORD
11 Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’” 12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me, “Blessed be the glory of the Lord in His place.” 13 And I heard the sound of the wings of the living beings touching one another and the sound of the wheels beside them, even a great rumbling sound.14 So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away; and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me.
15 Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the river Chebar at Tel-abib, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them.
CONSIDER THE HOLINESS OF GOD (VS 16) THE WORD OF THE LORD
16 At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
17 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. 18 When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself. 20 Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. 21 However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; and you have delivered yourself.”
CONSIDER THE HOLINESS OF GOD (VS 22-24) THE HAND OF THE LORD; THE GLORY OF THE LORD; THE SPIRIT
22 The hand of the Lord was on me there, and He said to me, “Get up, go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.” 23 So I got up and went out to the plain; and behold, the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory which I saw by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face. 24 The Spirit then entered me and made me stand on my feet, and He spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up in your house.
25 As for you, son of man, they will put ropes on you and bind you with them so that you cannot go out among them. 26 Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they are a rebellious house.
CONSIDER THE HOLINESS OF GOD (VS 27) THE LORD GOD
27 But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
Notes – Ezekiel 3 – MacArthur Study Bible (Everybody should own a MacArthur Study Bible)
3:1–3 eat this scroll…So I ate. God’s messenger must first internalize God’s truth for himself, then preach it.
3:3 like honey. Even though the message was judgment on Israel, the scroll was sweet because it was God’s Word (cf. Pss. 19:10; 119:103) and because it vindicated God in holiness, righteousness, glory, and faithfulness, in which Jeremiah also delighted (Jer. 15:16). Bitterness also was experienced by the prophet (3:14) in this message of judgment confronting Judah’s rebellion (v. 9). The Apostle John records a similar bittersweet experience with the Word of God in Rev. 10:9, 10.
3:7 Cf. John 15:20.
3:8, 9 I have made your face strong. What God commands (“do not be afraid”) He gives sufficiency to do (“I have made”), so God will enable the prophet to live up to his name (which means “strengthened by God”). Cf. 2:2; 3:14, 24; Is. 41:10; Jer. 1:8, 17.
3:9 rebellious. It is sad to observe that the exile and affliction did not make the Jews more responsive to God; rather, they were hardened by their sufferings. God gave Ezekiel a “hardness” to surpass the people and sustain his ministry as prophet to the exiles.
3:12, 14 the Spirit lifted me up. This is a phrase used to describe the prophet being elevated to a heavenly vision, as in the experiences of 8:3 and 11:1.
3:14 bitterness. See note on 3:3.
3:15 the captives. Tel Abib was the main city for the Jewish captives, who may have included some of the 10 tribes taken long before in the conquering of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., as 2 Kin. 17:6 may indicate (“Habor” is the same river as Chebar). remained…seven days. Ezekiel sat with the sorrowing people for 7 days, the usual period for manifesting deep grief (cf. Job 2:13). He identified with them in their suffering (cf. Ps. 137:1), thus trying to win their trust when he spoke God’s Word.
3:17 a watchman. This role was spiritually analogous to the role of watchmen on a city wall, vigilant to spot the approach of an enemy and warn the residents to muster a defense. The prophet gave timely warnings of approaching judgment. The work of a watchman is vividly set forth in 2 Sam. 18:24–27 and 2 Kin. 9:17–20. See notes on 33:1–20.
3:18–21 Cf. chap. 18, and see notes there.
3:18 the wicked…him…his. The emphasis of singular pronouns was on individuals. The ministries of Habakkuk (2:1), Jeremiah (6:17), and Isaiah (56:10) were more national than individual. Ezekiel’s ministry was more personal, focused on individual responsibility to trust and obey God. Disobedience or obedience to God’s messages was a matter of life or death; Ezek. 18:1–20 is particularly devoted to this emphasis. no warning…die. Men are not to assume that ignorance, even owing to the negligence of preachers, will be any excuse to save them from divine punishment. Cf. Rom. 2:12. save his life. This refers to physical death, not eternal damnation, though that would be a consequence for many. In the Pentateuch, God had commanded death for many violations of His law and warned that it could be a consequence of any kind of consistent sin (cf. Josh. 1:16–18). The people of Israel had long abandoned that severe standard of purification, so God took execution back into His own hands, as in the destruction of Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem. On the other hand, God had also promised special protection and life to the obedient. Cf. 18:9–32; 33:11–16; Prov. 4:4; 7:2; Amos 5:4, 6.
3:20 a righteous man. Here is a person who was obeying God by doing what was right, but fell into sin and God took his life in chastisement. The “stumbling block” was a stone of judgment that kills. Ps. 119:165 says: “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.” The crushing stone always falls on the disobedient. Hebrews 12:9 says it is better to obey and “live.” Cf. 1 Cor. 11:30; James 1:21; 1 John 5:16.
3:21 delivered your soul. The prophet had done his duty.
3:23 the glory of the Lord. The “glory of the Lord” is central to Ezekiel, appearing in 1:28; 3:12, 23; 10:4, 18; 11:23; 43:4, 5; 44:4.
3:24 shut yourself inside your house. He was to fulfill much of his ministry at home (8:1; 12:1–7), thereby limiting it to those who came to hear him there.
3:25 they will put ropes on you. These were not literal, but spiritual. On one hand, they could be the inner ropes of depressing influence which the rebellious Jews exerted on his spirit. Their perversity, like ropes, would repress his freedom in preaching. More likely, they imply the restraint that God placed on him by supernatural power, so that he could only go and speak where and when God chose (cf. vv. 26, 27).
3:26, 27 you shall be mute. He was not to speak primarily, but to act out God’s message. The prohibition was only partial, for on any occasion (v. 27) when God did open his mouth, as He often did in chaps. 5–7, he was to speak (3:22; 11:25; 12:10, 19, 23, 28). The end of such intermittent dumbness with regard to his own people closely synchronized with Ezekiel’s receiving a refugee’s report of Jerusalem’s fall (24:25–27; 33:21, 22). He also spoke with regard to judgments on other nations (chaps. 25–32).
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Biographies
Dr. John Ankerberg, founder and president of The John Ankerberg Show, the most-watched Christian worldview show in America
https://www.jashow.org/about-dr-john-ankerberg/
Signs of the Last Days – Dr. Jimmy DeYoung
Bio – http://jimmydeyoung.com/aboutdrd.shtml
Dr. Renald Showers
http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?SpeakerOnly=true&currSection=sermonsspeaker&Keyword=Dr.%5ERenald%5EShowers
Dr. Renald Showers is an author and Bible teacher for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc.
MacArthur Study Bible Notes
Bio – Dr. John MacArthur – https://www.gracechurch.org/Leader/MacArthur/John?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
Dr. John F. Walvoord, (1910-2012) long-time president of Dallas Theological Seminary, was one of the most prominent evangelical scholars of his generation. He is considered perhaps the world’s foremost interpreter of biblical prophecy.
Bio – https://bible.org/users/john-f-walvoord
Dr. Ed Hindson, http://thekingiscoming.com/about-dr-ed-hindson/
Dr. Ed Hindson is the Bible Teacher on The King Is Coming telecast. He is also the Assistant Chancellor, Distinguished Professor, and Dean of the Institute of Biblical Studies and the School of Religion at Liberty University in Virginia.
Hal Lindsey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Lindsey
Harold Lee Lindsey (born November 23, 1929) is an American evangelist and Christian writer. He is a Christian Zionist and dispensationalist author. He graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Master of Theology degree, majoring in the New Testament and early Greek literature.
Eternity 