CFBC Wed Study | 10-18-23 | Israel, Prophecy and the Middle East | Session 1
Dr. Chuck Herring | Ezekiel 36:1-15
Like a well-worn baseball, the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. I don’t need to remind you of that. You’ve read or worse, seen the horrific images of Hamas violence against Israelis. Women were raped, babies beheaded, hostages were taken, and people were tortured. Over 1,300 were massacred. Over 3,400 were injured and 200+ were kidnapped. 16 million Jews worldwide are mourning the worst attack since the Holocaust.
Like a well-worn baseball, the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. I don’t need to remind you of that. You’ve read or worse, seen the horrific images of Hamas violence against Israelis. Women were raped, babies beheaded, hostages were taken, and people were tortured. Over 1,300 were massacred. Over 3,400 were injured and 200+ were kidnapped. 16 million Jews worldwide are mourning the worst attack since the Holocaust.
The IDF is poised on the border of Gaza with the full intention of destroying the terrorist group, Hamas, while at the same time giving innocent Palestinians a chance to get out of harm’s way. America has sent aircraft carriers and even troops to make sure that other nations do not get involved. As a result, Iran has unleashed wicked threats against both Israel and America. Hezbollah in Lebanon is firing rockets into northern Israel, and they are threatening to open a northern front in this expanding war. It seems that the entire Middle East is a tinder box that is ready to explode at any moment. What are the prophetic implications of all of this?
Open your Bible to Ezekiel. This is one of those books in the Bible that attracts you with its vivid imagery, symbolism, parables, allegories, and apocalyptic visions. However, when you actually start to read it, you suddenly realize that it’s hard to understand.
Before we jump into our study, I want to read Psalm 83. Here are a few references to Gaza in the Bible…
Genesis 10:19… The territory of the Canaanite extended from Sidon as you go toward Gerar, as far as Gaza; as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.
Judges 1:18–19… And Judah took Gaza with its territory and Ashkelon with its territory and Ekron with its territory. 19 Now the Lord was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
Amos 1:6–7… Thus says the Lord, “For three transgressions of Gaza and for four I will not revoke its punishment, Because they deported an entire population To deliver it up to Edom. 7 “So I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza And it will consume her citadels.
Zechariah 9:5… Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; Also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon will not be inhabited.
Ezekiel was a priest by vocation, married, and among those exiled to Babylon. His name means “God strengthens” and he was a contemporary of Daniel. God called him to confront the root causes of their sinful rebellion against God and their failure to listen to God’s Word and to obey it.
His Spirit-inspired book may be divided into three sections, following the prophet’s call in 1–3…
(1) God’s judgment on Jerusalem, 4–24
(2) God’s judgment on the surrounding nations, 25–32
(3) God’s restoration of the Jews in the kingdom, 33–48.[1]
Have you ever tried to skip rocks across the surface of a lake? It hits the surface and then takes to the air again. The process is repeated until it just runs out of steam. That’s what we’re going to do tonight. We’re going to skip through Ezekiel 36 touching down at significant points in the text.
We’ve already seen how the book itself breaks down. Now, I want you to see how the chapter itself seems to breaks down …
(1) The Promise to renew the land of Israel –Verses 1-15
(2) The Promise to renew the people of Israel –Verses 16-38
Okay, with this in mind, let’s dive into the first section which deals with the renewal of the land of Israel.
Ezekiel 36:1–7… “And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. 2 ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Because the enemy has spoken against you, ‘Aha!’ and, ‘The everlasting heights have become our possession,’ 3 therefore prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “For good reason they have made you desolate and crushed you from every side, that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations and you have been taken up in the talk and the whispering of the people.” ’ ” 4 ‘Therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the forsaken cities which have become a prey and a derision to the rest of the nations which are round about, 5 therefore thus says the Lord God, “Surely in the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who appropriated My land for themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and with scorn of soul, to drive it out for a prey.” 6 ‘Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and in My wrath because you have endured the insults of the nations.’ 7 “Therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘I have sworn that surely the nations which are around you will themselves endure their insults.
Just as Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy to the Mount Seir (Edom) in chapter 35, now he prophesies to “the mountains of Israel” in chapter 36. What’s behind this contrast?
God promised to punish Israel’s enemies for their sin in hounding, slandering (v. 3), plundering (vv. 4–5), rejoicing over, and practicing cruelty against Israel.[2] Here at the outset of this prophetic portion of Scripture there is a powerful emphasis on God’s judgment of the nations that surrounded Israel, that hated them with a passion, and that sought to take their promised land. Look carefully at verse 5…
Ezekiel 36:5… therefore thus says the Lord God, “Surely in the fire of My jealousy I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who appropriated My land for themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and with scorn of soul, to drive it out for a prey.”
(MAP) God says that this tiny sliver of land is HIS LAND. Who did He give it to?
Genesis 15:7,18… And He said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.” 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.”
He gave it to Abraham and his descendants—the Jewish people.
Ezekiel 36:8–12… ‘But you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel; for they will soon come. 9 ‘For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown. 10 ‘I will multiply men on you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities will be inhabited and the waste places will be rebuilt. 11 ‘I will multiply on you man and beast; and they will increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited as you were formerly and will treat you better than at the first. *Thus you will know that I am the Lord*. 12 ‘Yes, I will cause men—My people Israel—to walk on you and possess you, so that you will become their inheritance and never again bereave them of children.’
Keep in mind that this Scripture is referring to the land of Israel. It’s interesting that as one studies the history of Israel it becomes apparent that the fruitfulness of the land seemed to be contingent upon the obedience of God’s people. Often, the sovereign Lord unleashed famines, droughts, pestilence, and locusts to discipline the Jewish people.
Leviticus 26:32–33… ‘I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. 33 ‘You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
Deuteronomy 28:64… “Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.”
In this passage God promises to make the land fruitful for “My people Israel.” Look at all the promises God makes concerning the land of Israel.
Ezekiel 36:13–15… “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Because they say to you, “You are a devourer of men and have bereaved your nation of children,” 14 therefore you will no longer devour men and no longer bereave your nation of children,’ declares the Lord God. 15 “I will not let you hear insults from the nations anymore, nor will you bear disgrace from the peoples any longer, nor will you cause your nation to stumble any longer,” declares the Lord God.’ ”
Besides punishing Israel’s enemies (vv. 1–7) and restoring Israel’s land (vv. 8–12), God will also remove the land of Israel’s reproach (vv. 13–15). The mockery and humiliation the land had been forced to endure (vv. 3–6) will cease. She will once again be restored to her position of prestige as the land of God’s Chosen People (cf. Deut. 28:13; Zech. 8:13, 20–23).[3]
Keep in mind that with Old Testament prophecy there is often a partial fulfillment that occurs in a certain time period and then a complete fulfillment that occurs in the future. Let me give you a bit of insight concerning the nation of Israel…
With this emphasis on the land of Israel, it’s important to understand that with the Roman conquests of AD 70 and AD 138 until the Zionist movement that started in the 19th century the land of Israel became a desolate wasteland. Mark Twain visited this God-forsaken land and reported…
In 1867 the American author Mark Twain toured the land of Israel and described it as a “desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful expanse…. A desolation…. We never saw a human being on the whole route…. hardly a tree or shrub anywhere…. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” (The Innocents Abroad)
Spurgeon, the great British preacher, said the following in an 1864 sermon that was focused on Ezekiel 36…
“These words were addressed to the mountains
of Palestine. Albeit that they are now waste
and barren, they are yet to be as fruitful and
luxuriant as in the days of Israel’s grandeur.”
I’ve been to Israel three times. I was amazed at the productivity of the land. Look at this…
According to Israeli government statistics and reports, since the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 they have more than tripled the amount of land used for farming and production has increased sixteen times. What used to be an agricultural wasteland is now a model for the world, and Israel produces 95% of its own food requirements and has a large agricultural export industry.
The most popular products in the Israeli agricultural market are tomatoes, carrots, turnips, grapefruit, and bananas. Israel is also a significant exporter of dates, avocados, olive oil, pomegranates, and almonds, and it is a world leader in agricultural technologies.
We can regard these impressive developments as a mere beginning of the much greater fruitfulness promised in the fullness of God’s plan for Israel and her land.
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Here are nine things you should know about the creation of the modern Israeli state.
1. In AD 138, the ancient nation of Israel ceased to exist when the Roman emperor Hadrian crushed the Bar Kochba revolt and banned all Jews from Palestine (i.e., the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel). The land was conquered by various nations until 1517, when it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans retained control until 1917, when the British captured Jerusalem during World War I.
2. By 1850, only about 14,000 Jews remained in Palestine. But in 1881, in reaction to growing anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia, a number of organizations were established with the aim of furthering Jewish settlement in the area. These groups were the forerunners of modern Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel.
3. Theodore Herzl—officially referred to in the Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel as “the spiritual father of the Jewish State“—launched the modern Zionist movement in 1896. He said…
Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves.
4. In 1897, Herzl began to put his plan into action by convening the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. At this symbolic congress—which was referred to as the Basel Congress—the group adopted the Basel Program with this stated goal: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.” A few weeks after the event, Herzl wrote in his diary…
“Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word—which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly—it would be this: At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today l would be greeted by universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years, everyone will perceive it.”
5. During World War I, the Allies drove the Turks out of Ottoman Syria. In 1917, the British government announced its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in the 67-word statement known as the Balfour Declaration.
After the war the British controlled the area of Palestine and was given a mandate by the League of Nations to administer the territory.
6. The Jewish population in Palestine grew between 1919 and 1923 as Jews began to flee persecution in Russia and Ukraine. This influx of Jews, along with the Balfour Declaration, led the Arab inhabitants of the land to develop their own political movement, known as Palestinian nationalism. A nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs led to the “Great Revolt” of 1936-1939. This insurrection led the British to propose a partition of the land into Jewish and Arab states. The Arabs rejected the proposal.
7. In 1939, the British began limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine. Even after the Holocaust began creating Jewish refugees in Europe, the UK refused to lift the immigration cap. Thousands of Jews died trying to flee to Palestine in small boats, and thousands more were caught and turned away. The American government supported a move to allow 100,000 new immigrants into the region, which prompted the British to abandon the Palestine Mandate and leave the issue to be resolved by the United Nations.
8. On May 15, 1947, the United Nations created UNSCOP (the UN Special Committee on Palestine), with representatives from 11 “neutral” countries: Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia. UNSCOP offered two proposals to solve the “Palestine Question.”
The first plan, supported by the majority of the committee, recommended the land be divided between an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem being under an international trusteeship.
The second plan, supported by a minority of the committee, proposed a federal union of Arabs and Jews with Jerusalem as its capital. The Zionists accepted the two-state solution, but the Arabs rejected both. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the partition plan as Resolution 181 (II).
9. On May 14, 1948, the British mandate over Palestine expired, and the Jewish People’s Council issued a proclamation declaring the establishment of the State of Israel. This day is celebrated in Israel as “The Day of Independence”.
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Since this time, the nation of Israel has had to fight for its existence…
1948 Arab-Israeli War (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia)
Six-Day War. Date: 1967 (Egypt and Syria)
Yom Kippur War. Date: 1973 (Egypt and Syria)
Is God’s covenant with the Jewish nation and the Jewish people permanent? The answer is “yes.” Look at this promise…
Jeremiah 31:35–36… 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: 36 “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the Lord, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.”
Let’s wrap up our session by considering the implications for what we are witnessing before our very eyes. Samuel Sey wrote this…
So in these bad times, we should remember the gospel of Christ. We should be more familiar with the good news than all the bad news from the war.
God became a man — a Jewish man. The king of the universe is from Israel. Jesus’ ethnicity is Jewish. His mother is Jewish. His brothers are Jewish. His Apostles are Jewish. His prophets are Jewish. His ancestors are Jewish.
Jesus was born a Jew, raised a Jew, died a Jew, resurrected a Jew, ascended a Jew, and reigns as a Jew. He hasn’t stopped being a Jew. Just as we will maintain our ethnicity in heaven (Revelation 5:9), Jesus maintains his Jewish ethnicity in Heaven. That’s why He’s described in the book of Revelation as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David.”
So if you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
In the same way, if you hate Palestinians, you hate their creator. Palestinians are made in the image of God, so if you hate them — you hate God.
The good news is Jesus was born in Bethlehem (currently Palestinian land) so that he would be the Savior of Jews and Gentiles, including Palestinians. He lived a sinless life so that He would suffer and die on the cross — offering Himself as our atoning substitute, the “righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto.
[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1993), Eze 1–36.
[2] Charles H. Dyer, “Ezekiel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1296.
[3] Charles H. Dyer, “Ezekiel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1297.
