Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S22 || The Furnace of Purging, the Promise of Return || Ezekiel 20:30-44 || Session 22
Dive deep into Ezekiel 20 as we explore one of Scripture's most fascinating prophecies about Israel's future. What happens when God's righteous anger and faithful love collide? The answer reveals a divine plan that spans thousands of years.
We begin by examining God's emotional response to Israel's persistent idolatry—their shocking practices of child sacrifice and worship of pagan deities that continued for centuries despite repeated warnings. Yet even amid this justified wrath, God reveals His unwavering commitment to the covenant He made with their ancestors.
The heart of this passage describes an extraordinary future regathering of the Jewish people from their worldwide dispersion. But this isn't a simple homecoming. God declares He will bring Israel "into the wilderness of the peoples" where He will "enter into judgment" with them face to face. This divine sifting process will separate faithful believers from persistent rebels, with only the former entering the promised land.
When will this happen? We carefully analyze the text's clues that point toward an end-times fulfillment rather than past historical events. Neither the return from Babylonian captivity nor first-century Israel satisfied the requirements of this prophecy—particularly the promise that "all of them will serve me in the land" and will "loathe themselves" for their former sins.
This beautiful vision of restoration, where a purified Israel dwells in their ancestral homeland serving God wholeheartedly, parallels similar prophecies throughout Scripture. From Isaiah to Zechariah, the prophets consistently speak of this future kingdom where God's purposes for Israel reach their ultimate fulfillment.
Whether you're fascinated by biblical prophecy, interested in God's plan for Israel, or simply want to understand the balance between divine judgment and mercy, this episode offers profound insights into God's character and His unwavering faithfulness to fulfill every promise He has made.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
If you've been with us in the book of Ezekiel, we've been studying how God was going to pour out his wrath on a disobedient Jewish people. He has already brought some of them to Assyria and Babylon. He will send Babylon in again to destroy the city of Jerusalem and scatter all of the Jews to these other nations. That has been one of the major themes. As we've seen, he is quite emotional. He gets angry at places and tells about his wrath that he's going to be pouring out in punishment for Israel's gross sin. They were sacrificing their children. They were their children. They were worshiping idols. They had refused to help the strangers and the fatherless, so he had great judgment against them.
Speaker 1:Major theme in Ezekiel One of the other themes that comes is God will bring a remnant back to the land of Israel. We saw it back at the end of chapter 17, where he said I will plant a young sprig of cedar on the high mountain and I will cause it to prosper. We're going to see it again when we get to Ezekiel, chapter 36, where God plainly says he will bring the people back from scattering amongst the nations and he will bring them back to the land of Israel and cause them to keep his statutes. Here in Ezekiel chapter 20 that we're going to get to today, we're going to see a similar theme. God is still dealing with a disobedient people. He is still very wrathful, but he also is going to talk about what is going to happen in the future when he blesses them again. Steve, can you start in Ezekiel 20 and read from verse 30 to verse 38?.
Speaker 2:Therefore, say to the house of Israel Thus says the Lord God Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and play the harlot after their detestable things? When you offer your gifts, when you cause your sons to pass through the fire, you are defiling yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, o house of Israel, as I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you. 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.
Speaker 2: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. I will 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, and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples and there I will enter into judgment with you, face to face. As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness and the land of Egypt, so will I enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord God. I will make you pass under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:One of the things I think we need to touch on is God's attitude here. I think it becomes quite important with what he's saying If we look at verse 33, it says With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you. Now, steve, what does that tell us about God's attitude in this section of Scripture?
Speaker 2:He has a purpose and he is driven as to bringing about his will and what he's going to do. He's going to bring it about in such a way. It's the same type of language that he talks about bringing them out of the land of Egypt. He brought them out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. It's depicting him as somebody that's determined to bring the nation of Israel, regathering them once again and getting them to a point where they're going to worship him as king.
Speaker 1:Does it surprise you that he is so forceful, so powerful here?
Speaker 2:No, because they're an obstinate and stubborn people. That's how you have to be with those type of people, is you have to be forceful in order to accomplish some of the things?
Speaker 1:I think the reasons he gave here were just cause for him to be so angry and so powerful. Look again at verse 31. When you offer your gifts, when you cause your sons to pass through the fire, that means they were sacrificing their sons to these pagan idols. He had mentioned that already in this chapter. The people were justly condemned and deserving of God's wrath and power. And says and shall I be inquired of you, o house of Israel, as I live, I will not be inquired of you, simply because he had told them many times to stop these abominable things and they were still doing them. I think that God was justified in telling Israel that he was not going to listen to them. Steve, today, if we do abominable things and then approach God, is he just in not answering our prayers?
Speaker 2:He's absolutely just in not answering them and there's also going to be consequences to them. We've talked about this in the past. For the ones that are lost, the ones who are not believers in Jesus Christ, there's going to be condemnation and they're going to be judged on that. For the ones that are believers, their consequences are going to be lost rewards. People need to think about the way that they treat and interact with God, whether they're saved or whether they're lost.
Speaker 1:He says in verse 33, with this mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, I will be king over you. He is exerting his royal power, his kingly power, again the divine creator of the universe, as the right to do this. But let's look at verse 34 again and we'll get into this next section. I think it's going to surprise you with what direction this is going. I'm reading again in verse 34. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered. And with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, hand with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples. There I will enter into judgment with you face to face.
Speaker 1:Steve, what's he talking about here? He's saying that again, because of their disobedience, he had pulled them out of the land of Israel and scattered them. Here he's talking about sometime future. He says I'm going to bring you back, I'm going to gather you from these lands. Again, he still has his outstretched arm. So this is still in wrath. He even says so I will enter into judgment with you. Well, judgment tends to imply a punishment here. I'm going to weigh your deeds and judge you. He says now I'm going to do it face to face. This is like when I was a kid, getting called into the principal's office. For the things I've done, I'm going to have to answer for them. That is indeed what he's talking about here, is it not?
Speaker 2:It is. In the next verse he makes a connection to the wilderness of Egypt. When he brought them out. What happened is that they didn't trust God to go into the land, and so they ended up wandering in the wilderness or a whole generation did for 40 years, and only a select few ended up going into the promised land. Those who were 20 and younger at the beginning of that wandering went into the land, and then the only two of that generation were Joshua and Caleb. Wherever this wilderness that he's talking about in the prior two verses 33 and 34, I think it's somewhere outside of the land. The wilderness of Egypt, where they wandered, was outside the land of Israel, the promised land. I think that we can say with confidence, glenn, that this wilderness that he's talking about right now in verses 33 and 34 is somewhere outside of the land of Israel. It must be.
Speaker 1:Again. If we just look at what he says in the passage, I think the meaning of it becomes clear. Look down at verse 38. The purpose for this exercise he's doing is to purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against me. If you remember, the history of the Jewish people is that they had continually for centuries, continually for centuries, been wrapped up in worshiping these pagan deities idol worship, child sacrifice, sex worship. They were doing all these things. God had gone through cycles of sending judgment against them and sending prophets to speak to them, and they might repent for maybe a short season, but then they were right back to the pagan practices. These were the rebels. They had been there for many centuries and the worship of false deities would not go away.
Speaker 1:So here in verse 38, what he's doing is he says I will purge from you these rebels and those who transgress against me. He is finally going to drive out the idol worship. So how does he do it? That's how he explains it, starting in verse 36. He's comparing it to when he brought them out of Egypt and had them wandering through the wilderness Verse 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, he's going to bring people out of the diaspora, the scattering, the dispersion, and he's going to gather them then to some wilderness place with the goal of then driving out all of the idol worship and the false worship. Am I correct, steve?
Speaker 2:Yes, I believe so, and this particular area could be a time whenever he is bringing them back into the land, but subsequent to that part of it, we're talking about this time of judgment in the wilderness. But yes, it's clear though that it's depicting a regathering of the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1:One of the clues as to when this happens. Let me read 38 again. And I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn. Those were the lands that were outside Israel and that they had been scattered. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord. So the sequence that he very clearly explains here no symbolism here at all. He says just like the time back when Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, if you remember, there was one generation passed away and another one started. The unbelief was purged out when Israel walked through the wilderness of Egypt. He says, just like that, I'm going to bring you out of all of these lands that you're dispersed in now. I'm going to bring you into a wilderness and I'm going to purge out the rebels from among you. Those ones will not enter the land of Israel, steve.
Speaker 1:The question then arises as to when this was fulfilled. It was the time Ezekiel said it. It was future to the day he said it. So we have either. It was fulfilled when they came back from the 70-year Babylonian captivity in between then and the first century, when they were scattered again or it's yet to be future today, I would submit that it can't be fulfilled after the Babylonian captivity in between there and the time of Christ. Simply because he says here they will not enter the land of Israel, and the people that were brought back from Babylonian captivity did enter the land of Israel. Plus, as we're going to read in verse 40, everyone's going to obey God. In the first century, everyone was not obeying God, which is why Jesus cast judgment on them correct.
Speaker 2:Also, in the first century there were still Jews that were scattered all about. They were in the Greece area, they were in the Rome area, they were down in the Egypt area. They would come in during the high festivals of Passover, Feast, of Tabernacles and such. There were still some that were outside of the land even in the first century. Before we continue on this discussion, Glenn, I want to go back to verse 30 and point something out for our audience.
Speaker 2:It says there therefore, say to the house of Israel. The same thing could be said of this, the house of Jacob. This is talking about all of Israel. It's not talking about the northern kingdom of Israel, of the divided kingdom. It's not talking about the northern kingdom of Israel of the divided kingdom. It's not talking about just the southern kingdom of Judah. It's talking about all Israel, the house of Jacob, the house of Israel. The reason why we point that out is because there are some that want to just take that southern kingdom of Judah and lump all other things that happen in the future from Ezekiel's time and some of the other prophets to just those two tribes. And they say just those two tribes are the Jewish people going forward, because the northern 10 tribes. They were taken off into captivity from Assyria, they were assimilated into Assyria and so on and so on.
Speaker 2:But this is clear here that he's talking about all of Israel. It's not just those two southern tribes, it's the house of Israel, the house of Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons. That's the 12 tribes of Israel. What do you think, Glenn?
Speaker 1:I think you're spot on. The other thing that we need to make clear is talking about Israel. It's not talking about the church, because he says Israel and he makes the clear comparison. He said, just like when I brought you out of Egypt and was wandering through the wilderness, so I'm going to bring you out of the land that you'll be sojourning in. He's very clearly speaking to Israel in a very Jewish context, with a Jewish story and a Jewish background. He's not talking about the church here.
Speaker 1:Whatever he's about to say in the verses that we've read and the ones we haven't read yet, he's speaking to ethnic Israel, the house of Israel that was brought out of Egypt and wandered through the wilderness. That's what he's talking about here. He's again saying I'm going to bring you out of the lands that you sojourn. Just like I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness verse 36, I will enter into judgment with you. He will bring the people out from being scattered amongst the nations. He will bring them to a wilderness area. He will judge them. The ones he judged will not enter the land of Israel. He says that in verse 38. The ones that he is in fellowship, he says in verse 37, I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. Who's going to bring them into the bond of the covenant? I will, says the Lord God. This is a unified action by the Lord God that will bring them out, put them through judgment and cast some of them out that won't get into the land of Israel will not be brought into the land of Israel. Some of them, god will cause them to keep. It says the covenant. Very similar language.
Speaker 1:We haven't got to it yet, but this almost exact same concept is repeated in Ezekiel 36. He says I'm going to bring you out of the lands that you're scattered from, he says in chapter 36, he says I'm going to take out your heart of stone, put in you a heart of flesh. He uses the phrase cause you to keep my statues. So there and here he's talking about ethnic Israel being dispersed throughout the lands. Here he's going to judge some of them that won't go into the land of Israel and some of them that will go under a covenant. Steve, what covenant is he talking about here?
Speaker 2:Well, I believe that he's talking about the new covenant that's mentioned in Jeremiah. Glenn, I kind of got us off track there a little bit. Right when I did that you were talking about as far as where this fit into the time frame, you said that it couldn't have been the time frame of coming out of Babylon, that captivity, and we discussed that it's not the time frame of the first century. Let me let you get back on track now. Where do we go from there? If it's not those two time frames, then what time frame do you think it is?
Speaker 1:Let me go ahead and read verses 40 to 44, and I think it'll help answer this timeline question, starting in verse 40, for on my holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel, declares the Lord God, there, the whole house of Israel, all of them will serve me in the land. There I will accept them and there I will seek your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your holy things as a soothing aroma. I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered. And I, the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers. There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have dealt with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds. O house of Israel, declares the Lord God. With this, we have statements in here where he says a couple of times I'm going to bring you out of the nations that you've been scattered from. Some of them won't be able to go into the land of Israel and some of them will. In verse 40, he even says it twice the whole house of Israel, all of them will serve me in the land and I will accept them there. We have here a very clear set of things where he says some people will not be able to go into the land of Israel, some will.
Speaker 1:If we ask ourselves, when was this? The options are either we spiritualize all of it and turn it into some sort of an allegory for the church. That really doesn't work, because the church never was scattered amongst the nations. Believers in Jesus are never spoken of as being disobedient and not coming into the land, things like that. So it really does not fit with allegorizing it across the church age. So we're left with either after the Babylonian captivity between there and when Christ came in the first century. That's one option and another one is yet to be fulfilled, future today, which would be, if you're a premillennialist, it would be towards the end of the great tribulation period, the seven-year tribulation period.
Speaker 1:The reason why I don't think it fits in between the time of the return from Babylon and Jesus' day is simply because he says here that all of them will serve me. That wasn't happening in Jesus' day. Jesus came to condemn them. There was not a time in between the return from Babylon and Jesus' day when any of the Jewish people truly obeyed as a nation. He also says here that I will gather you and prove myself holy amongst you in the sight of the nations and prove myself holy amongst you in the sight of the nations, and I bring you into the land of Israel, to the land which I swore to give to your forefathers. There you will remember your ways and the deeds which you've defiled yourselves and will loathe yourselves and know that I'm the Lord.
Speaker 1:Well, that wasn't happening, for the very reasons that Jesus condemned them for. I mean read Matthew 23. He condemned them up one side and down the other. They rejected Jesus, saying that he was demon-possessed. These were a rebellious, hard-hearted, hard-headed people. That was in between the time of Babylonian captivity in the first century. In between the time of Babylonian captivity in the first century we are left with the premillennial position of it still being future today and happen at the end of the seven-year tribulation period.
Speaker 2:I agree wholeheartedly with that view. What you just got through saying, Glenn, when you mentioned that it can't be the church, because the church is never scattered among the nations, I think what you were saying is that the church itself is not a nation unto itself. Well, I think maybe take what you said and go. Well, the church is made up of all types of people from all nations, but the church itself is not. It's the body of Christ. It's not a nation unto itself. That's why it's not appropriate to put it here, because the church, as you said, has not been scattered among the nations. It's made up of people from the nations, but it's not a nation unto itself.
Speaker 1:Also to emphasize that, look at the end of verse 44. This is why we don't hold Israel in the Old Testament to be the church. Again, picking up in the middle of verse 44. For my name's sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, o house of Israel. So if Israel here was the church, the church is never spoken of as having evil ways. The church is made up of saved people that are righteous before God. Because of Christ's righteousness, israel is not the church. Just because it doesn't fit, that leaves us with again. The other two options were either in between the time of the return from Babylon and Jesus or at the end of the Great Tribulation period.
Speaker 2:I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I think that that is depicting that and that it fits with the timeline of events that are going to happen regarding the Great Tribulation. All the verses that we read there, from 40 on, are talking about the kingdom, the restored kingdom of Israel, how it's going to be, the characteristics of it and the attributes that are going to be there for that kingdom. Now, one thing is that we left off verse 39, so some people might be saying, hey, you're not addressing verse 39,. What is that? Well, let me read verse 39, and we'll just talk about that briefly. It says there as for you, o house of Israel, thus says the Lord, god, go, serve everyone his idols, but later you will surely listen to me and my holy name. You will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols. Then he goes on into verse 40 and describes that restored kingdom.
Speaker 2:Glenn, as you and I were preparing for this, we talked about that. I think we agree that verse 39 is a transition verse. You have the verses 30 through 38 that are talking about a regathering of Israel. They're going to be in this wilderness area. They're going to go through the rod and pass through it we just talked about, that's going to be at the end of the Great Tribulation period. Then this transition verse of 39 is God turns back to the people that Ezekiel is among the exiles. He tells them but for you, you go ahead and do what you're going to do. But there is going to become a time whenever you are going to become a believer in me, yahweh. Then he transitions into the future again of this kingdom, from verse 40 on through 40 on 6 or 48, which you read To reemphasize this.
Speaker 1:I mean the passages that we just read. There's all this language in here about. All of them are going to worship me and you're going to loathe yourselves in your own sight and you will know that I'm the Lord and you're going to eliminate all your corrupt ways. I remember, steve, when we went through Nehemiah and Nehemiah was after the Babylonian captivity what did he find? He found corrupt people. They were taking bribes, they were cheating on each other.
Speaker 1:There was all this corruption. There was not all the people that were worshiping the true God in harmony and unity there. There was just as much corruption after the Babylonian captivity as there was before. They didn't have the idol worship that was driven out of them, but their corrupt hearts were still there. We really really have to shoehorn this and torture it to death to get it to fit in between the Babylonian captivity and Christ's day, fit in between the Babylonian captivity and Christ's day. And when Jesus came it was a total rejection. They said Jesus was demon-possessed. All in between there we had disobedience. It really just doesn't fit. If you're going to take what the text actually says, then you have to put it at a time that's yet future to us today.
Speaker 2:That is something. Just reading through the text and looking at it, I think that the conclusion that we've outlined here is one that's very logical and one that has to come with and, as you pointed out in the introduction to this session, is that it's a theme of God. Yes, there's wrath, there's consequences to their disobeying the ordinances, statutes, and all of that for the house of Israel, but there's also restoration. That is a common theme. That is here in Ezekiel, and not just Ezekiel, when we went through Zechariah. Same thing there when you have the other prophets Jeremiah, isaiah, zephaniah, amos, joel you mentioned it All of them give this picture of a restored kingdom of Israel where all of the nation itself is worshiping God and that Jesus is going to be ruling from Jerusalem On and on and on.
Speaker 2:That is told throughout all these other prophets. So to me it's uplifting because, yes, there's consequences to sin and disobedience, but there's also restoration that God promises and that he doesn't forget his covenant with the nation of Israel and he's going to bring about a restored kingdom. That's not going to be just a blessing to Israel itself, but it's going to be a blessing for all the nations in the world. Look at verse 42.
Speaker 1:I bring you into the land of where Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers. So unless you're wondering which land of Israel he's talking about, it's the land that he swore to the forefathers. The next sentence, verse 43,. There you will remember your ways and all your deeds, which you have defiled yourselves, and you will loathe yourselves for your own sight, for all the evil things you've done. The land promise was still in effect in Ezekiel's day. God is still reinforcing the land promise. I will bring you back to the land. Which land? The land I promised to give to your forefathers.
Speaker 1:Ezra repeated it after the Babylonian captivity. The land promise was never taken away. It is part of the kingdom. With the land promise, then all of this fits, because now you have an Israel that still to this day is largely scattered amongst the nations. God will bring them back, will judge them. The ones that do not believe will not enter the land of Israel in the millennial kingdom. The ones that do will enter the land in the millennial kingdom. There you'll get to what's mentioned in Romans 9, 10, 11, all Israel will believe in the millennial kingdom. Steve, it's quite an interesting passage. We got all of that from this one little section back here in Ezekiel. But these types of things aren't isolated, like you just said. All these other prophets in the Old Testament repeat these ideas over and over again. There's many, they're wide, they're deep and they're quite clear.
Speaker 2:That's why, if you remember back to our introductory session, what did we say? We said that the prophets are a foundation to understanding where we're going and where the nation of Israel is going. If you haven't watched our introductory session, go back and watch that and you'll see what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:There's going to be still more of God's powerful arm and outstretched hand, and we're going to see much of that next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening, as always. May God bless you you.
