SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/22/2015
10:04 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Portion of the City
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
48:30-35
Message of the
verses: “30 "These are the
exits of the city: on the north side, 4,500 cubits by measurement, 31 shall be
the gates of the city, named for the tribes of Israel, three gates toward the
north: the gate of Reuben, one; the gate of Judah, one; the gate of Levi, one. 32
“On the east side, 4,500 cubits, shall be three gates: the gate of Joseph, one;
the gate of Benjamin, one; the gate of Dan, one. 33 “On the south side, 4,500
cubits by measurement, shall be three gates: the gate of Simeon, one; the gate
of Issachar, one; the gate of Zebulun, one. 34 “On the west side, 4,500 cubits,
shall be three gates: the gate of Gad, one; the gate of Asher, one; the gate of
Naphtali, one. 35 “The city shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of
the city from that day shall be, ’The LORD is there.’"”
As I listened to the 48th chapter of the book
of Ezekiel this morning I was kind of amazed as to how the book ends “The city
shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of the city from that day
shall be, ’The LORD is there.’"”
Let us look at this last verse in the Message “35 "The four sides of the city measure to a
total of nearly six miles. "From now on the name of the city will be
YAHWEH-SHAMMAH: "GOD-IS-THERE."”
Yahweh-Shammah is one of the names of God, and as it says here it means “God
is There,” there in this new city, in this new era, the Millennial Kingdom, the
kingdom that has been promised to the nation of Israel ever since God called
Abraham from his idol worshiping country to be the father of the people of
Israel. This was somewhere around 3000
years ago and it still has not happened, but God’s promises are true and He
will keep them as this will come to pass at the end of the Tribulation Period
when Christ comes back to planet earth to set up His Kingdom, keeping His
promises to Abraham and His seed.
I need to mention that this is the last Spiritual Diary
from the book of Ezekiel. We began to
study this book on the 23rd of October last year, 2014 and although
it kind of got put on the back burner of my studies since the first of the year
when it was made clear to me to again look and study the book of Revelation, it
has been a wonderful study as all of the books of the Bible have been. A few months ago our Pastor began to look at
Peter’s second letter and he asked the question what is your favorite book in
the Bible to study and as I thought about it I responded to him in an email
that my favorite book to study was the one that I am studying and at that time
it was Ezekiel. I have to mention again
that I struggled with these last nine chapters of Ezekiel because of all of the
measurements that are in them, but after playing golf with a couple of my
friends yesterday I mentioned this struggle to one of them and he told me that
God is so exact that He even is exact with His measurements. God measures what is His and He also measures
things that will receive His wrath. I am
glad for the exactness of God as He took the time to put in all of the
measurements of the city, temple, and where the tribes of Israel will be in the
Millennial Kingdom and that is what we are studying from these last nine
chapters and even in these last six verses.
It has been a custom of mine as I study these OT books to include the
last portions of Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s commentary as he puts his final touches
on the book that he is writing on and so in our next SD we will look at what he
had to say about “The meaning of the new Temple from the end of his commentary
on the book of Ezekiel and the end of his commentary on these last nine
chapters of Ezekiel.
Dr. Wiersbe begins this section by writing “This will be
a ‘kingdom Jerusalem,’ a new city for the new nation and the new era.” Now these last verses of Ezekiel 48 speak of
the exits or the gates that are found in this new city of what we will call
Jerusalem and gates have always been important as we will see when we look at
some other OT passages. The 3rd chapter of Nehemiah speaks of how
the gates were built for the city of Jerusalem when he returned to Jerusalem to
find out that they were not completed.
Gates were important in the defense of the city as they were more than
what we think of gates today. The gates
were actually much bigger and had room in them to have soldiers be there in
order to bring defense to the city.
Psalm 48 is another chapter that looks at the gates. I looked at the 48th Psalm on February
22nd and 23rd of 2012 in my Spiritual Diaries. Psalm 87:2 says “The LORD loves the gates of
Zion More than all the other dwelling places of Jacob.” Psalm 122:2 says “Our feet are standing
Within your gates, O Jerusalem.” Psalm
122 is what is called an “Ascent Psalm,” meaning a Psalm that was recited as
the people ascended into Jerusalem for one of the feasts they celebrated, like
Passover.
In the Millennial Kingdom there will be 12 gates in the
city as each one is named for one of the sons of Jacob, but instead of having
Manasseh and Ephraim as Josephs sons there will be one called Joseph and Levi
will also have a gate. Dr. Wiersbe
writes “Any Gentile coming to the city to learn about the Lord will have to
enter the city through one of these gates and be reminded that ‘salvation is of
the Jews’ (John 4:22). The city will be
about 1.6 miles square. These gates, of
course, remind us of the gates to the holy city that John described in
Revelation 22:10-13, 21.”
As we look at the last verse again we see the most
important thing about this city will be the Lord Jesus Christ who will reign
over the world from this city and as we stated it means “Jehovah Shammah—the Lord
is there.” Dr. Wiersbe points out that
this is one of seven compound names of Jehovah that are found throughout the
OT. “Jehovah Jireh—‘the Lord will
provide’ (Gen. 22:13-14); Jehovah Rapha—‘the Lord who heals’ (Ex. 15:26);
Jehovah Shalom—‘the Lord our peace’ (Jud. 6:24); Jehovah Tsidkenu—‘the Lord our
righteousness’ (Jer. 23:6); Jehovah Shammah—‘the Lord is present’ (Ezek.
48:35); Jehovah Nissi—‘the Lord our banner’ (Ex. 17:8-15); and Jehovah Ra’ah—‘the
Lord our shepherd’ (Ps. 23:1),” and this is
a very fitting way to end the book of Ezekiel knowing some of the names
of God.
5/22/2015 10:59 AM
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