Gluten Free & God Seeking: Life-Study of Ezekiel

Showing posts with label Life-Study of Ezekiel. Show all posts

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Looking at the Spiritual Meaning in Ezekiel's Visions - Why Does A River Flow Out of God's House in Ezekiel 47?

A sump failure is a homeowner’s nightmare. I know because it happened to us. Two years ago we had record rainfall, almost like Noah’s ark revisited with the days of rain almost hitting the 40 day marker. With the rising water table, a lot of people had sump failure.

For us two of our three sumps failed. Most of our basement had between a quarter to half inch of water, and we and some friends spent hours shop vacing it out. You can imagine the mess. Then we had to rent a humidifier to remove moisture out of the walls so mold wouldn’t start growing, which is another Northwest nightmare.

That’s my backdrop for the vision in Ezekiel 47:1-12 where the prophet sees a river flowing out of the threshold on the east side of the temple (Ezek. 43:2). Unlike us, God likes water in His house. In chapter 26 Witness Lee says that the east side is the direction of God’s glory—think about the sunrise! After doing the study on God's glory the last two weeks, I see this a bit differently now. In this chapter it said when we care for God’s glory, it causes the flow of water to increase.

In this vision we see again the man of bronze measuring, but this time it's the flow of water. At first, it was just a trickle, and at the next measurement of 1000 cubits, the water was at the ankles. The man measures the water four times, and at each 1000 cubit increment, it goes higher until all you can do is swim in it. This river didn’t just happen, certain things caused it, and I found this explanation insightful on page 302 of chapter 26 of the Life-Study of Ezekiel.

Several crucial factors brought in the flow of the river. The first was the building up and the completion of the house. Following this, the people began to have their living according to the house. Their daily life and all their conduct began to be according to the form, fashion, pattern, statutes, and laws of the

house (43:10-11). Next, the serving ones, the priests were serving the Lord in a proper way. Finally, there were all the offerings…There were yearly offerings, monthly offerings, daily offerings, and all the solemn feasts. We need to realize that the experience of all these matters brought in the flow of the river. When the Lord saw all these things, He must have been very happy. He had a house--the place of His throne, a place for the soles of His feet, a place where He could dwell for His rest and satisfaction [43:7]. He saw the house with its forms and statutes, and He saw the priests and the offerings. Therefore, He sent the flowing of the river, and the river began to flow out of the house (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Ezekiel. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1998, Print).

What I got from this chapter is everything in the church hinges on the building. And he mentions later in this chapter for us to experience this flow, we ourselves need to be measured. I learned that the man of bronze symbolizes the Lord's judging of our motives, goals, and desires so He could possess us for His house. And that the four

measurements signify the number of the creature (think about 4 living creatures). These four measurings show us that we are in a continual process of being taken over by the Lord. Doesn't that give you another view of your Christian life?
Other posts on the Major Prophets:

Life-Study of Isaiah:

You can listen to excerpts of Witness Lee's speaking the Life-Study of Isaiah on Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee. You can also read the online Life-Studies of Isaiah and check out other resources available to enhance your study of the Bible on Living Stream Ministry's website.

How Can the Son in Isaiah 7:14 & 9:6 Be the Mighty God?
Seeing Christ as the Great Light in Isaiah 9:2
Why is Christ Called the Cornerstone in Isaiah 28:26?
Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Crucifixion Foretold - Part 1

Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Resurrection &Ascension Foretold - Part 2 of 2

Life-Study of Jeremiah & Lamentations:

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Looking at the Spiritual Meanings in Ezekiel's Visions - The Vision of the Return of God's Glory to His House in Ezekiel 43 - Part 2 of 2

During the time of Samuel, even the priesthood had become degraded. God couldn't even speak to Eli the high priest, He only spoke to Samuel who was just a child at the time. Things were so upside down, the Israelites even took the ark of God with them into a battle with the Philistines. What were they thinking?!

     And we know from 1 Samuel 4 that God let it be captured because of how far the Israelites had fallen away from God. When Eli heard that the ark was captured, he fell off a rock wall and died (1 Sam 4:18). Also, when his daughter-in-law heard the news of her husband's death and the ark's capture, she went into labor.

   And as she was dying, she named her child Ichabod which means no glory (1 Sam 4:19-22). From that time until the ark's return, God's glory left Israel. This means that God had no expression on earth.  And that was a big deal.

     Listening to the dialog between King David and Nathan in 2 Samuel 7 is quite touching. David's heart mirrored God's own heart's desire to have a dwelling place on earth for His glory to dwell. We know from the Bible that after Solomon built and dedicated the temple, God's glory filled it:

And the priests were not able to stand and minister because of the cloud, for the glory of Jehovah filled the house of God. 2 Chronicles 5:14

Not long after this dedication God speaks a sobering word to Solomon that's recorded in 1 Kings 9:6-7. He warns them that if they worship others gods, he would cut them off from the land of Canaan. As the Bible sadly recounts, the idolatry of the surrounding nations gradually ensnared many of the Israelites. Again, what were they thinking?!

Finally things got so bad, God gave up on His people. God allowed the northern kingdom to be taken captive by the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians took the southern kingdom. After Nebuchadnezzar laid a siege on Jerusalem, he destroyed the temple and burnt the city's walls. I learned from the Life-Study of Jeremiah that the prophet Jeremiah wept when he saw this happen, and surely he was saddened when he realized that God had again lost the place for His glory. What a tragedy!

This now bring us up to where I'm reading in chapter 24 of the Life-Study of Ezekiel. In the opening of this chapter, Witness Lee goes over verses recorded earlier in Ezekiel that show the gradual departure of God's glory from His people. The first step is recorded in

Ezekiel 9:3 "And the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been to the threshold of the house...." Then in 11:23 Ezekiel sees God's glory gradually leave Jerusalem before returning to heaven--"And the glory of Jehovah went up from the midst of the city and stood upon the mountain which is east of the city."

Then later in Ezekiel's life when he was 50 years old and seeing the vision of the man measuring the temple, he saw the glory returning through the east gate!! This is recorded in Ezekiel 43:2, 4 "And the glory of the God of Israel was there, coming from the way of the east, ....And the glory of the Jehovah came into the house through the gate which faced toward the east," I enjoyed reading this chapter a lot, and here's some excerpts from pages 275-276 in chapter 24 of the Life-Study of Ezekiel that explain why the glory returned:

"We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that the glory of God returned only after the building of the temple was completed....God wants to have the church built up on earth because He desires to have a dwelling place on earth. He, the God of the heavens, wants to live on the earth. The place where He lives, His dwelling place is the church....Our main burden in this study of Ezekiel is to see the dwelling place which God desires to have on earth. If we have the grace to be built up in the church, the God of glory will live among us" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Ezekiel. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry. 1998, Print).

By doing this word study on glory relating to the tabernacle and temple, I saw in a whole new way that God needs a place for His glory to dwell so He can reign on the earth not only in the heavens!!! And this verse in this chapter means a lot more to me now:

And He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever....Ezekiel 43:7a

Other posts on the Major Prophets

Life-Study of Isaiah:

You can listen to excerpts of Witness Lee's speaking the Life-Study of Isaiah on Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee. You can also read the online Life-Studies of Isaiah and check out other resources available to enhance your study of the Bible on Living Stream Ministry's website.

Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Resurrection &Ascension Foretold - Part 2 of 2

Life-Study of Jeremiah & Lamentations:

Monday, November 11, 2019

Looking at the Spiritual Meanings in Ezekiel's Visions - The Vision of the Return of God's Glory to His House in Ezekiel 43 - Part 1 of 2

What is God's glory? That might sound a bit nebulous like air that you can't see, so hard to define. But when you read a verse on God's glory like this one in Matthew 6 you get that it's pretty important: The last half of verse 13 says, "For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." But still what is God's glory all about?

     In my reading through the Life-Study of Ezekiel, I came upon chapter 24 which is entitled The Return of God's Glory to the House, and it opened up by sharing different verses about how Ezekiel had seen God's glory gradually leave. But then years later when he was about 50, he saw God's glory return.

    In order to write about this, I decided it would help to give some background on God's glory, and so this is going to be a more scholarly post. I enjoy research as it reminds me of my English literature classes, and so I enjoyed looking up verses and footnotes in my Recovery Version of the Bible as well as reading out of the Life-Study.

     We're going to start way back in Genesis which showcases the lives of eight great men of God--Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. I learned in chapter 24 of the 1932-1949 volume of The Collected Works of Witness Lee that each of them was an outlet for God's glory to reach the earth. That was eye-opening to me!!

     Then he says that by the time you come to the opening pages of Exodus, Jacob's children are now about two million people (based on the records in Numbers and adding for women and children) and in captivity in Egypt. At that time no other people on earth except the Israelites worshipped the One true God who created the heavens and the earth. They were His collective outlet on earth so that God could establish His kingdom. Isn't that an amazing view of Israel's history?!

Once all these delivered Israelites were at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, God was able to share His heart's desire for them to be His people and later give instructions for building a dwelling place so God could have a place to reign on the earth and express His glory!! That's a lot more impressive than just having Abraham as His testimony on earth in Genesis 18.

And about a year later (Exo. 40:17) when the tabernacle was finished, the Israelites watched in awe as the glory of God settled down upon it and filled it. On page 330 of the CWWL 1932-1949 he says that this is the first mention of glory in the Bible.

Exodus 40:34 Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.

My footnote on this verse says:

"Glory is God's expression, God Himself expressed. The cloud covering the Tent of Meeting was the outer part, the outer covering of God's glory. Those who gathered around the Tent of Meeting could see the cloud, whereas the high priest who eventually entered into the Holy of Holies (Lev. 16:15; Heb. 9:7) in the tabernacle could see the inward glory of the tabernacle..." (Holy Bible, Recovery Version. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 2003, Print).

Surely having God's glory in their camp was a huge blessing to the children of Israel. The footnote on verse 36 says that during all their 40-year journey in the wilderness, God's presence was like a wall of protection to them and guided them safely to the land of Canaan. I realized from reading all of this that God's glory with His people made them unlike any of the other nations. In the next post you'll see some of the glitches along the way in Israel's roller coaster history.

Other posts on the Major Prophets

Life-Study of Isaiah:

Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Resurrection &Ascension Foretold - Part 2 of 2

Life-Study of Jeremiah & Lamentations:

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Looking at the Spiritual Meanings in Ezekiel's Visions - What Do All the Measurements of God's House in Ezekiel 40 Symbolize?

Walking my daughter's dog

On the earth God's heart's desire is to have a dwelling place. In Ezekiel's vision in chapter 40 God takes him back to Jerusalem to see the temple. Outside the gate he sees a man of bronze measuring with a reed, which was one cubit (about 18 inches). As I was reading through chapters 19 to 23 that talk about this building, I learned that all the numbers and even the materials in the temple have profound spiritual meaning. This is what God said to Ezekiel:

And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I shall show you; for to the intent that I might show them unto you are your brought here: declare all that you see to the house of Israel. Ezekiel 40:4

In chapter 19 of the Life-Study of Ezekiel, I really liked Witness Lee's comment on page 213 where he talks about how God's building helps us to locate God:

"The holy temple is the place where God is, God's dwelling place. If we want to seek God, contact God, fellowship with God, and serve God, we need to realize that God has His dwelling place. On the one hand, God is omnipresent; on the other hand, God has His particular place. If we want to meet Him, we must know His exact location, His definite habitation. Thus, we need to consider the vision of God's building in Ezekiel, for this vision describes the place where God dwells--His holy temple" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Ezekiel. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1998, Print).

       Ezekiel sees that along the east, north, and south sides of the wall there were 3 gates, each with seven steps. I always thought that these gates were like my yard gate, but I found out from my reading that they actually were very complex structures full of spiritual meaning. The entire gate is quite large at 50 x 25 cubits (about 75 x 57 feet) which makes the length about the size of twelve 6 foot men.

    Once you’re on the top step, the gate’s entrance is 10 cubits wide, the same number as the 10 commandments. I read on this page that this showed that Christ is the only One who could fulfill them, and this gate shows us that He is our entrance into God's dwelling place!!  Isn't the Bible an amazing book that even in these measurements God is telling us something?"

   And the passageway was composed of six guardrooms split into two groups of three and this portrays the death of Christ. I learned that the guardroom measuring 6 x 6 cubit shows how Christ as the perfect man 6 was split on the cross for us. These guardrooms also signify that Christ is the One who guard’s God’s holiness and glory—not you or me. What a picture all these numbers show us!!!

     It’s amazing that each of these rather small chambers contained 3 windows each and there were also windows between each room, so the gate contained 30 total windows! These windows show us that Christ as a perfect and upright man is full of the Spirit’s light and air. I learned from my reading that what God wants us to see here is that in His building all the light and air comes from Christ-- not us.

     Inside the gate are also 30 posts, with 15 on each side. And I read that the spiritual meaning here is the Triune God--3 bears the responsibility--5 to support God’s building—not us! Each of us needs to be upheld by Christ in order to enjoy what He is in His building.

    On each side of all the posts is a palm tree. I really liked that the spiritual meaning of a palm tree is that Christ is the everlasting, victorious One who is standing, bearing, sustaining, and prevailing over everything in His house--not us!!   So I'm sure you get it by now that what caught my attention as I was reading this chapter was all the details in God's building point out that Christ is the only One who can meet the demands and requirements of God's building--not us!!

      Then when Ezekiel came out of the gate, he was on a porch that was 8 cubits wide, and this means that by then you're in a position of resurrection and are now ready to go up 8 more steps into a second gate which is very similar to the first one.

      I wouldn't have gotten this on my own, but I read that these two gates show us that God’s building is progressive.  I read that as we go on, we repeat many of the same spiritual experiences, but we experience more of the Lord. Ezekiel's journey through these two gates brought him to the inner court where in the center stood the burnt offering altar. This shows us that the only way to enter into the Holy Place let alone the Holy of Holies is through the cross. And that was going to be covered in the next chapter. So in order to find out what the rest of the temple means, you'll have to click on this link for the online chapters of the Life-Study of Ezekiel and read some of these chapters yourself!!

Other posts on the Major Prophets

Life-Study of Isaiah:

Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Resurrection &Ascension Foretold - Part 2 of 2

Life-Study of Jeremiah & Lamentations:

Monday, October 21, 2019

Looking at the Spiritual Meaning in Ezekiel's Visions - What's the Valley of Bones All About in Ezekiel 37?

Long before I had even read the book of Ezekiel I knew the song like most kids do that's called Dry Bones. It was a fun way to learn how all the bones are connected to each other, but I never would have thought it had any spiritual meaning!

In chapter 37 of the book of Ezekiel God gives him a vision of a valley full of scattered bones and that all those bones represented the children of Israel. At this time in their history God's saw His people as dead and scattered.

It is interesting what happens next. God doesn't begin to hunt for bones and try to connect them to each other like someone trying to put a Lego kit together. Instead He tells Ezekiel to prophesy over these bones.

Then He said to me prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of Jehovah. Thus says the Lord Jehovah to these bones, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. Ezekiel 37:4-5

Then He said to me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy son of man, and say to the wind, Thus says the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. verses 9-10

Without Witness Lee's exposition on pages 203-204 in chapter 18 of the Life-Study of Ezekiel, I would have been completely lost as to what this all means:

With my grandkids at a harvest festival

"Many Christians have a mistaken understanding of prophesying, thinking that to prophesy is only to predict....Other Christians think that to prophesy is to teach. But no matter how much one may teach dry bones, they remain dry bones....In this chapter Ezekiel neither predicted something to the dry bones nor taught them. On the contrary, when Ezekiel prophesied, he spoke something for God, and God followed him. As Ezekiel was prophesying, God was blowing upon the dry bones, sending the wind, the breath, and the Spirit" (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Ezekiel. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1998).

Probably what stood out to me the most in this chapter was when I read that this shows us that the believers first have to get their bones together and then God will send His enlivening breath through their speaking to one another (See 1 Corinthians 14:26)!! That may sound a little backwards, but that's what this vision shows us.

And this breath makes them a great army, which is what God wanted His people to be on the earth. I learned more about that in the recent study on the book of Numbers that I've been doing. If you'd like to check into that, here's a link from Living Stream Ministry's website to the Life-Study of Numbers.

Other posts on the Major Prophets

Life-Study of Isaiah:

Taking a Closer Look at Isaiah 53 - Christ's Resurrection &Ascension Foretold - Part 2 of 2

Life-Study of Jeremiah & Lamentations:

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