This afternoon, if you have your Bibles and will turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel chapter 37, beginning at verse 15. Last Sunday evening, I mean last Wednesday evening, we looked at the first portion of chapter 37 and Ezekiel was given a vision of the Lord about the nation of Israel coming back into the land.
And they were coming back into the land in unbelief. We talked about how many churches today feel God is done with Israel because the vast majority of the Jewish people don’t believe in Jesus as Messiah and so consequently, he’s got to be done with them. And that’s not the case at all.
I was just talking before the service today that Jeremiah in more than one passage talks about the fact that as the sun rises, as the stars are in the sky, as the days continue, God is not done with the Jews. As long as that happens, the nation of Israel shall remain. And we know from the prophecies given, not only in Ezekiel, but also in the book of Revelation that God is going to deal with the nation of Israel as a complete nation in the very last of the last days.
And that the majority that are left alive, that the remnant that are left alive in the last days will all come to faith in Christ that did not come to faith before then. Well, this afternoon, the Lord has Jeremiah build upon what he showed him in the Valley of Bones. He’s going to show him how this is going to happen, how this nation is going to come together.
Now, I want you to understand at this moment in history, first of all, the northern kingdom of Israel has been disbanded as a nation for just about a hundred years at the time that Ezekiel is writing this. They were taken into captivity by the Assyrians long before the southern kingdom was taken into captivity by the Babylonians. There were some of the people in the northern kingdom that remain.
And we know this both from the book of Ezekiel as well as from the book of Jeremiah, as well as from when we study the kings of Israel and saw that when Josiah had the Passover, when he was the last godly king of the southern kingdom of Judah, and he had the Passover, and it was the first Passover that was celebrated correctly since the time of Solomon. And he called for all the Jewish people, even the remnant that was in the northern kingdom, to come in to the south to worship at Jerusalem and partake of the Passover. So we know at that particular time already, there were still some Jews living in the northern kingdom of Israel, but in the southern kingdom, that nation would be taken into captivity by the Babylonians during the time of Ezekiel.
Are you having trouble? Okay. So we have these two kingdoms that were all Israel to start with. There was a southern kingdom of Judah, northern kingdom of Israel that happened at the time after the death of Solomon, during when his son came to power.
Then the kingdom split, and they remained split even up to Ezekiel’s time, and they remained split even to the time of Jesus. They were not really ever a one nation again. And the kingdom that kind of remained even at the time of Jesus was really Judah, and Judah and those tribes that were with Judah.
And we’re going to be studying today what God’s plan is. Now for those that would say God is done with Israel, and then you cannot read this and say that this is the inspired work of God, and look at historical events that have happened in our lifetime, and say, well, God’s done with Israel. It can’t be, because either that or this isn’t true.
And the thing is that we know this is true, because we’ve seen it happen in our lifetime. So let’s read beginning at verse 15,
Ezekiel 37:15-28
15 The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, 16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: 17 and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? 19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. 21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: 22 and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: 23 neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. 24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. 25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. 26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.
Let’s just bow in prayer. Dear Holy Father, as we come before you, Lord, I pray that you just help us to break apart your word as we look at what you have promised, what has already happened in our lifetime, what we’re seeing beginning to even further happen, and Lord, help us to see that your word is true, your promises are real, and they shall be fulfilled.
Speak to us now, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s interesting, way back at the time when Jacob was blessing his sons, you remember that Joseph appeared before Jacob, and he had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
Manasseh was the elder son, and Ephraim was the younger. And Joseph brought his sons before Jacob to receive the blessing from his father. The right hand is the hand that would go upon the one that would get the double portion or the greater blessing.
The left hand would go upon the child that would still be blessed, but he’d receive a lesser blessing. Joseph placed the older, Manasseh, so that Jacob’s right hand would be upon him. He placed Ephraim, his younger son, so that Jacob’s left hand would be upon him.
Jacob could hardly see if he could see at all at this particular time, as he was going blind. And the thing is, what he did is he crossed his hands, and he placed his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh. Joseph became upset, and he said, Father, you’ve got your hands on the wrong children.
Your right hand is to be on Manasseh, he’s the elder, and your left hand is to be on Ephraim, the younger. And Jacob said, No, they are on the hands that the Lord directs me to be. Ephraim will be the greater, and Manasseh will be the lesser of these sons.
Now, when the inheritance in the land came, and we see that the nation of Israel went into the land, that the double portion was given to Joseph. And he had his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, each inherited portions of the land. There is no land that was given under the name of the tribe of Joseph.
Rather, Ephraim received the portion of land that was right north of the tribe of Judah’s inheritance, and also right north of where the nation of Israel was. And today, much of that land is called Samaria, but it’s really the land of Ephraim. Ephraim became the leading tribe of the northern kingdom.
He was the strongest, the biggest, and the one that was the leader of the northern kingdom. The southern kingdom became Judah. Now, we know from the blessings that were given to the sons that Judah, even though he was the fourth son born to Jacob, he received the blessing as far as the inheritance and the one through whom the Messiah would come.
And Judah also was the one that the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, remained true to the Lord longer than the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel consisted of Ephraim, Manasseh, Reuben, Gad, and Naphtali. I’m trying to remember them all.
It was all of the tribes except in the southern kingdom you had Judah and a portion of Simeon, which was incorporated into Judah, which we’re going to see in a second, and then also the tribe of Benjamin. And then the Levites were sprinkled amongst the people. But the northern kingdom was ten tribes, the southern kingdom was two tribes, but Judah was the prominent one in the south, Ephraim was the prominent one in the north.
This is what Ezekiel is speaking of. At the time he’s writing this, the northern kingdom had been, like I said, in exile for quite some time. There was hardly anybody left in it.
And for him to make this prophecy that not only was the northern kingdom going to be brought back, but the southern kingdom was going to be restored because they had just been taken into exile by the Babylonians. At the time Ezekiel is writing this, Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar is beginning to do the final destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, the scattering of the people, and so consequently there’s hardly any Jewish people left in the southern kingdom and very few in the northern kingdom. And so how are these going to come back as two different sticks and become one? Well, what God has intended is He has always said in His Word that He’s going to call His people from whence He scattered them and they’re going to come back into the land and they’re going to come back as we saw last Wednesday night in unbelief as dry bones in the midst of the valley and they’re going to be scattered and then the Lord is going to reassemble them into not only a living group of people that will once again be able to respond spiritually, but He’s also going to establish them as a nation.
And that’s what we’re going to look at this afternoon. How is He going to do that? He said that first of all, moreover thou son of man, take the one stick and write upon it for Judah and for the children of Israel his companions and then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph and the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions. And so He’s incorporating all the children of Israel to be represented by these two sticks.
And we see that Judah is the primary one for the south, Ephraim is the primary one for the north and all those tribes that are associated and affiliated with each of them are represented in these sticks. So all of Israel is there. He says, Join them one to another into one stick and they shall become one in thine hand.
So when Israel comes back into the land after the final dispersion in 70 AD, which we see that then they really were dispersed amongst the nations and the land became desolate for a long period of time until when they started to come back in the late 1800s. Then the land once again began to start to be fruitful. But prior to that, it had become totally desolate and there were hardly any Jewish people, although there were still some Jewish people in the land of Israel, but very few.
And there were very few Arabs by the way either because the Arabs like to say, Oh, we had the land. No, you didn’t. And there was a very few from the records of Mark Twain when he was there in the mid 1800s.
He said there was, the land was desolate. There was swamps and desert and mosquito infested and there was nothing growing and all you would find was a few villages. He referred to Jerusalem as a small town, a small village.
And so there was hardly any people left and yet we see that this is the promise that was given. Now he says that I’m not going to bring them back as two, but I’m going to bring them back as one. And when the Jewish people came back, they started to come back in the late 1800s, as I mentioned.
And then in about this time, there was a movement started that the Jewish people should once again have their own land. And this came about after some events happened in World War I in France, where there was a young Jewish man who was falsely accused simply because he was Jewish. And I believe it was Herzog was the one that he saw this happen and said we need to have our own land.
Because there was no reason that this young man should have been prosecuted and convicted because he’d done nothing other than he was Jewish. And so at that time he saw anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jews coming into Europe. And so he began to put in motion that Israel should go back to the land that was their land, the land of Israel.
Although it was not called that at this time and was barren. Well, when it began, they didn’t go back as one. They were just an organization attempting to gather together people and encourage them to go back.
But what we see happen is they were two sticks, the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. But God said they’d come back as one. After World War II in 1945, there was the partition of the land that was mainly instituted by the British and also overseen by the French.
But it was mainly the British that influenced it. And they began to divide the land up. And today we have the countries that are in the Middle East and for the most part, those nations weren’t, that wasn’t the boundaries of the nations in the past historically, but it’s what was mandated by the British mandate in the early 40s and mid 40s and after World War II.
And much of the land was given, for example, to kingdoms of Arab sheiks that had befriended the British. And for example, Jordan and also Iraq, Syria were given. And the nation of Israel was at that time initially referred to as Palestine.
That’s where the name came from. And it was to be a discouragement to the Jewish people because really the name Palestine had its roots back. It came in way back at the time of Titus when he was a Roman Empire that destroyed the temple under his watch in 70 AD and drove the nation of Israel out of the land.
He called them, the first ones that called them Syria-Palestina because it was a play on the words of the Philistines, which was arch enemies of Israel throughout the Old Testament. And so he called them, that was the name he used to refer to their land and to them. And at the time that they were first brought into the land, the first Palestinians were actually Jewish people.
The Palestinian Symphony Orchestra was actually a Jewish orchestra. There was a newspaper that’s called the Jerusalem Post that was then referred to as a Palestinian because there was no ever any land of Palestine. There was never a group of people that were Palestinians.
Never has been. There’s been groups of Arab tribes and then there were the Jewish people, which were the 12 tribes of Israel. And there were other nations around there, but there’s never been a nation of Palestine.
So when they came back in 1945, in 1948, I’m sorry, I’ve been saying 45, 1948, 45 was when the war got over. But 1948, they came back into the land and after land has been dispersed and boundaries put on it, Israel was given a portion of land and initially they were given more and then it was taken, began to be whittled away and they finally ended up with a portion of land. And then as they came back, they’re even being prevented by the British who were doing the mandating.
They were trying to be prevented for coming back into the land. It’s quite an amazing story how they even got there. Well, then at this time, a portion of the land that had been designated for the Jewish people had no name.
It had no real leadership. And so in 1948, there was a council that met of those that were the leaders of those people that had returned to the land. And they said, what are we going to do? Are we going to come back as Judah? Are we going to come back as Israel? What will we do? Because we left as two tribes, or two nations.
How should we come back? And it was determined that we are coming back as one nation. And our history has been that we have been Israel. And so we shall be Israel again.
And it’s exactly what it says here. And yet today you have people in the Christian church that say God never said that the Jews would have the land again. Well, I don’t know about them, but they must not believe in the literal interpretation of God’s Word that we read right here.
Because it says they’re coming back and it tells you how they’re coming back. They’re coming back as one nation. That’s exactly how they did come back.
Now it says, are they going to come back in belief? Because there’s a lot of people that say, well, the Jews don’t believe, so why should we say that this Israel is the same one that the Bible is talking about? Because that was the Jewish people that God had called His own. And yet we saw in Psalm 78 that we read early this morning, the Jews have always been a stiff-necked, hard-hearted people. There’s only been a remnant of them that have been a believing faction of the Jewish people that really trusted in the Lord throughout their history.
They have rebelled against God. God has chastised them. That’s why they were dispersed amongst the nation in the first place.
But God said, I’m not going to leave you there. And I’m going to call you back into the land. And this land shall be given.
Now He’s specific about where the land is. It’s not going to be Syria. It’s not going to be Turkey.
It’s not going to be in some place on a Madagascar or some island off of Africa. It’s going to be their land. He says that they shall come back and they shall be settled around My mountain.
What mountain is that? That’s Mount Zion. That’s the Lord’s mountain. That’s where the tabernacle of David was taken.
That’s where the temple of Solomon was built. And that’s where the nation shall return is to that land. And it’s said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Go, God, behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and I will gather them on every side and bring them into their own land.
And now it’s interesting. I just read an article this last week where there’s people who say they are of the tribe of Manasseh who just got off the planes and flew back into Israel to resettle and partake in Aliyah as that is returning to the land. And they said that we are from the tribe of Manasseh.
Some of these people can trace what tribe they’re from. Others can’t. But they know that they’re Jewish and there’s specific genetic markers that are for Jewish people that aren’t in any other people.
And they’re returning to the land. We’re just about out of time so I wanted to go down and talk just a little bit about what’s going to happen when they get there and then we’ll pick that up again Wednesday night. He says, verse 21, And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord, God, behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whether they be gone, and will gather them on every side and bring them into their own land.
And it’s their own land. It’s not the Palestinians. It’s not the Arabs.
It’s not anybody else’s. It’s their own land that was promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all of their descendants. He says, I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel and one king shall be king to them all.
And they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. So one nation has happened. The problem is they haven’t got a king yet.
But the king is coming. And we’ll be looking at that on Wednesday night. Who is this king? The first to him is David.
We’re going to take a look at that. They will be one nation under one king in their land worshiping on their mountain, on God’s mountain. Let’s just bow in prayer.
Lord, I thank You for the opportunity You’ve given to show us that Your Word is true. Your promises are true. And we are seeing it lived out in our lifetime where the nation of Israel will return not as two nations but as one.
Not to two lands, but to one. And under Your power and under Your miraculous hand that made it happen. Lord, now we pray that You just help us to be an encouragement to others to help them understand that Israel doesn’t deserve the land because they’re so wonderful but because You have promised it to them.
And Your promises will be delivered upon. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.