Joshua and Judges: Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment in the Millennium, part 3. Rom 11:25-29; Eze 20:32-44.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment in the Millennium, part 3. ROM 11:25-29; EZE 20:32-44.   

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

 

Ezekiel prophesies from Babylon during the time of the captivity of the gathering of the elect at the second coming from the four corners of the earth.

 

EZE 20:32 "And what comes into your mind will not come about, when you say: 'We will be like the nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.'

 

In other words, in the minds of many of the elders of the Israelites who are in captivity they thought that they would continue as any other nation. But to no other nation has such promises been given as are contained in the Abrahamic covenant.

 

Of all nations only Israel will survive as an eternal kingdom, just as He had promised Abraham.

 

Historians with different philosophies of history than the Abrahamic Covenant find themselves at a loss to explain the Jews. Philosophies of history based on non-biblical presuppositions fail to provide any answer to Jewish survival.

 

The materialist interpretation of history was expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It basically states that the organization and development of nations is determined by its labor and relationships. Labor refers to the instruments of labor as well as the total power of labor. Relationships refers to how men and women must interact to survive and reproduce. Naturally it is a way in looking at history from the purely materialistic view as a communist would like to see things.

 

A former communist by the name of Nicholas Berdyaev writes:

"I remember how the materialist interpretation of history, when I attempted in my youth to verify it by applying it to the destinies of the people, broke down in the case of the Jews, where destiny seemed absolutely inexplicable from the materialistic standpoint. …According to the materialistic … criterion, this people ought long ago to have perished. Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the processes of adaptation expounded by the materialistic interpretation of history. The survival of the Jews … their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the peculiar and mysterious foundations of their destiny."

 

For the anti-Semite who cannot be persuaded by the scriptures to drop his anti-Semitism, the Bible has some useful information. The Bible provide the one method that will work in destroying the Jews. Satan should take notes.

 

Still engaged in the passage in chap. 32.

 

JER 31:35  Thus says the Lord,

Who gives the sun for light by day,

And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,

Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar;

The Lord of hosts is His name:

 

JER 31:36 "If this fixed order departs

From before Me," declares the Lord,

"Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease

From being a nation before Me forever."

 

JER 31:37 Thus says the Lord,

"If the heavens above can be measured,

And the foundations of the earth searched out below,

Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel

For all that they have done," declares the Lord.

 

[back to]

EZE 20:32 "And what comes into your mind will not come about, when you say: 'We will be like the nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.'

 

DEU 7:6

"For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

 

We are in a similar predicament. As believers we can never be like the rest of the world.

 

1CO 6:19

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

 

Sure, a believer can act like an unbeliever, but as he does there is a drastic change from his experience as an unbeliever, the Holy Spirit who indwells him will pester him, convict him, and lead him back. The grieved or quenched Spirit within does not rest. He is God Almighty, and He is for His believers and not against. In this way the believer, even the most backslidden, can never truly be the same as he was as an unbeliever again.

 

Just as God hounded Israel with prophet after prophet, warning them of the coming doom of His fierce discipline, the church age believer who has not fully surrendered to the will of God will be hounded by God the Holy Spirit. God the Father will allow circumstances that exasperate his lack of peace. God the Son will relentlessly pray for those circumstances and for his return. And that believer may just shake his fists and shout that he would prefer to be left alone, but what he may not understand is that he is God's own possession, not just because God created him, but because he has been made God's very child and through the redemption of Christ, he belongs to God in every possible way.

 

EZE 20:32 "And what comes into your mind will not come about, when you say: 'We will be like the nations, like the tribes of the lands, serving wood and stone.'

 

EZE 20:33 "As I live," declares the Lord God, "surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you.

 

The mighty hand and outstretched arm refer to the action and power of God, His omnipotence and its use in judging the wicked, bringing the righteous into the land forever, and making Himself King over them.

 

The context is the judgments of the Tribulation as well as the judgment directly after, at the second coming, by Christ in the wilderness over those who have survived the Tribulation. He will distinguish between believing and unbelieving Jew and the same for Gentiles.

 

It is so different then what we are used in seeing in the normal relationships between a king and his subjects. If the subjects reject the king and say they want to be like other kingdoms there is usually a revolt or a revolution and the king my put it down or, as is usually the case, eventually that king will be replaced with a successor who is more willing to bow to the will of the people. But we don't see that here. We read of the discontent of the subjects in verse 32 and then the kings response in verse 33 is that He is going to make happen what He will and to that nation He will bless them much more than they could imagine. He will judge those who reject Him but by His power and His wisdom He will bring them into the land of blessing and He will be their King. He doesn't reject them even though they have rejected Him in favor of idols of wood and stone.

 

The wrath poured out would refer to the wrath of the tribulation being fully emptied and the dispersed Jews being purged as well as the judgment face to face in the wilderness with the unbelievers who have survived the tribulation. Only believing Jews and Gentiles will enter into the Millennium with Christ; the Jews to promise and the Gentiles in submission to them.

 

EZE 20:34 "And I shall bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out;

 

EZE 20:35 and I shall bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I shall enter into judgment with you face to face.

 

EZE 20:36 "As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you," declares the Lord God .

 

Of the exodus generation in the wilderness, the ones who rejected the covenant promise perished.

 

EZE 20:37 "And I shall make you pass under the rod, and I shall bring you into the bond of the covenant;

 

Under the rod - the method of the shepherd to identify and count his sheep.

 

JOH 10:16

"And I have other sheep [church], which are not of this fold [Israel]; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd.

 

A shepherd lets his sheep pass through under his rod for the purpose of counting them, and seeing whether they are in good condition or not.

 

The figure is here applied to God. Like a shepherd, He will cause His flock, the Israelites, to pass through under His rod, i.e., take them into His special care, and bring them "into the bond of the covenant"

 

Prophesied by Micah about 730 BC:

 

MIC 7:14

Shepherd Thy people with Thy scepter,

The flock of Thy possession

Which dwells by itself in the woodland,

In the midst of a fruitful field.

Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead

As in the days of old.

 

JER 33:12 "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'There shall again be in this place which is waste, without man or beast, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds who rest their flocks.

 

JER 33:13 'In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the Negev, in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who numbers them,' says the Lord.

 

The "rod" [Hebrew: shebet] as a tool is used by the shepherd and the teacher. It is a symbol of authority in the hands of a ruler, whether it is the scepter or an instrument of warfare and oppression.

 

He leads and teaches. He rules and makes war. He rewards and judges and the rod or scepter is the symbol of His authority and power. When the people pass under it, it is symbolic of His absolute authority over them.

 

PSA 2:1Why are the nations in an uproar, And the peoples devising a vain thing?

 

PSA 2:2 The kings of the earth take their stand, And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His Anointed:

 

PSA 2:3 "Let us tear their fetters apart, And cast away their cords from us!"

 

PSA 2:4 He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them.

PSA 2:5 Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury:

 

PSA 2:6 "But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain."

 

PSA 2:7 "I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, 'Thou art My Son, Today I have begotten Thee.

 

PSA 2:8 'Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Thy possession.

 

PSA 2:9 'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware.'"

 

PSA 2:10 Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth.

 

PSA 2:11 Worship the Lord with reverence, And rejoice with trembling.

 

PSA 2:12 Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

 

ISA 11:1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

 

ISA 11:2 And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

 

ISA 11:3 And He will delight in the fear of the Lord, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;

 

ISA 11:4 But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

 

ISA 11:5 Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

 

ISA 11:6 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the kid, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.

 

ISA 11:7 Also the cow and the bear will graze; Their young will lie down together; And the lion will eat straw like the ox.

 

ISA 11:8 And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den.

 

ISA 11:9 They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.

 

ISA 11:10 Then it will come about in that day That the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, Who will stand as a signal for the peoples; And His resting place will be glorious.

 

ISA 11:11 Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.

 

ISA 11:12 And He will lift up a standard for the nations, And will assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.

 

ISA 11:13 Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, And those who harass Judah will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, And Judah will not harass Ephraim.

 

map of Israel and Judah

 

ISA 11:14 And they will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines on the west; Together they will plunder the sons of the east; They will possess Edom and Moab; And the sons of Ammon will be subject to them.

 

ISA 11:15 And the Lord will utterly destroy The tongue of the Sea of Egypt; And He will wave His hand over the River With His scorching wind; And He will strike it into seven streams, And make men walk over dry-shod.

 

ISA 11:16 And there will be a highway from Assyria For the remnant of His people who will be left, Just as there was for Israel In the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt.

 

The symbolic element of the rod comes to expression in a description of the messianic rule.