Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 1 – 3
• This chapter is a bit of a “zoom out” from the previous chapters. This is a larger lens view of the land, not just the temple. The temple and the city are to be set in a special set apart district belonging directly to the Lord. The length of this district will be about 7 miles by 3 miles and the square mile temple complex will be within it. Ok so with that understanding, check this out…
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verse 4
• Wait a minute. This land, this district belongs to the Lord. A holy section of the land set apart for the Lord. That is what we read already in this chapter. But awesomely, we just read that yes, it is the Lord’s land but belonging to those who come near to minister to the Lord. So, which is it? Is it the Lord’s or is it the ministers? The answer is not yes…
• It is the Lord’s. This land is holy. It is His. In His grace and as a repetition of His character, a revealing of who He is, this is what He does. He calls it theirs. God invites those that chose Him to share in all that He has for Himself. This is the character of God, and we, I would never know it if it weren’t for what He has done for me.
• I cannot imagine what it took for Him to send His Son to die in the place of an enemy. I know that God so loved the world and I know that the blood of Jesus has atoned for all sin, but honestly, that’s secondary to me…secondary to the fact that He so loved me, that His blood and what it cost Him atoned for my sin…
• Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” And so, I make a choice and that choice is to serve the Lord. My choice to make, I’ve explored other paths, I’ve contemplated and studied other ways to do this life, and this is the choice I have made. Not because it is right…that’s not enough for me. But because of who He is…God’s demonstrated powerful and pure character of grace and infinite strength, and unconditional love. Romans 2:4 (my accentuation), “Know the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.” FREEDOM. And seen here, in these words, is that as I give my heart to Lord, He gives me all that is His own in return. “All things,” as Paul wrote.
• But and yet still I know…in all that I have received, grace, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance, eternal life, heavenly citizenship, the gift of the Holy Spirit ministering fruit into my heart and life like love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control, I know, and this I believe is the right way to be and believe and to think and to progress, I know that underneath it all…all that I have laid claim to by my own choice in freewill of giving my heart to Jesus Christ, I know that it is all His.
• And so, we talk a while. And I tell Him…and He says to me, “But I give it to you.” And I’m thankful, and I’m blessed, and we just go on for a while longer until I tell Him again that I know it’s all His… I think that is a bit of communion between the Father and His son, or His daughter, I think that’s a bit that He cherishes…something between us that He really loves.
• It’s like if I owned a mansion, beautiful and clean and glorious and my daughter who had nothing came to live with me…perhaps had torn down the foundations of her life, failed on her own…and when she comes home, she is met with more than a welcome but with a gift…that all I want is not just for her to be with me but for me to give everything I have to her. As a father, it would bless me to give her all that she could not give herself. That’s what I see here and that’s how it is with me and my Father…and I believe that is what He wants, because He is good.
• It says here in verse 4 that this holy section will be, “Belonging to the priests,” and that word belonging is big-league. It means a “standing.” A place for them to stand. No fall, no fail, no weakening…where they are does not shift, but what God has given them is a place in which they are secured, and they stand. In a world of shaky and shifting sand, that right there is a big-league deal.
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 5 – 6
• Here is introduced a bit of mystery because it appears that the city, speaking of Jerusalem, which belongs to the whole house of Israel, is not the city we know today. That it is somehow different.
• Today, the entire city, or area that we know as Jerusalem is 48 square miles. The “Old City” which is how we refer to basically the original city of Jerusalem which is within the walls of Jerusalem is only a third of a square mile.
• This city is approximately 7 miles by 2 miles so we have a mystery…that the city will be reformed, redefined and resized when Jesus comes back on the scene and I quite like that. It just becomes different. God recasts the measures…and I look forward to that.
• Now, that work even occurs in a life today…If you say “yes” to God, He will always show up. Did you know that? Maybe…well move it up in the order of what matters in your heart and how you think! God is able to do more and give more and please more and satisfy more and secure me more than I could ever get for myself. And we are surrounded in this world with people that serve self and miss what God has for them. We compete for good things when God will simply give the best things to each one of us specifically best for us, if and as we trust Him.
• Listen, you can’t compete with me. I WANT you to win! I want what God wants for me and for you and in that there is this victorious thumbing of the nose to all that is darkness, all that is of this fallen nature and world because I am coming for everything THEY EVER said I couldn’t have!
• Revelation 12:10-11, “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” This is inaugurated eschatology. Bringing what will be to the now. This is that overcoming that God can call into place and recast and bring forth what was not before. That’s work that I cannot do in my life but simply just trusting the Lord and following His lead, He can do it and eternally, astoundingly, more than I could ever do for myself.
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 7 – 8
• It’s interesting that the translators have added some context here for us that I do not believe is necessary and this is one of the few times where this happens that I do believe by adding to the text for understanding purposes, they may have rather taken away from the understanding.
• The words, “The rest of,” are in italics in your Bibles because those words don’t appear in the original copies in Hebrew. Words added for contextual understanding. God says here, “My princes shall no more oppress My people.” God’s heart is for the people, and God raises up leaders and watchers and caretakers to do just that, to care for those entrusted to them. Anyone that leads anything, that’s what He wants of you, for me…to care for them.
• And so, He says, in order to turn from their oppression of the people, “They shall give the land.” It’s not about you or what you can get or the people serving you. True leadership is about serving them, what you can give to them to love them as God loves them. God wants to provide for the people around you. And He does that by sending them YOU! I am God’s provision for you and you are God’s provision for me. Even to the unbeliever. Even to the lost. Even to the hurting and the mistaking…God change my heart on this! I want to walk in this one right here…because that right there will change everything to be something so much better than I can know!
• And the crazy thing is, and this is true in all of the things of God, what you can get through oppression may make you happy for the moment, you get something you want…your craving is satisfied until the next craving…but what you get in leading as the Lord would have you to lead is far far more. Far more…and carries lasting joy and lasting satisfaction with sustained highs higher than the high of the moment of indulgence! Trust Him!
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 9 – 10
• Many times merchants had weights to sell with and an entirely different set of weights to buy with. And so inevitably, if one 5 ounce weight was slightly heavier than the other, that one would be used for selling while the lighter weight would be used for buying. They both say “5 ounces.” It’s just simple common sense to do that way. Maximize your money…but…it would be at the cost of others.
• This is not the character or the way of the Most-High. We today apply the same principle in our judgement of others. We use light weights for our own sin and heavy weights for the sins of others. It should not be so. God says, “Honest scales.”
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 11 – 17
• Many believe this prince to be David…but here we see the prince fulfilling the office of the priest, which David was not. David was the king. Not the priest. I’m not saying that this prince is not the resurrected and glorified King David…I’m just saying that there are points on both sides of the discussion to consider, if you want to discuss it at all…which I really don’t.
Ezekiel Chapter 45 Verses 18 – 25
• The point of this whole chapter and really the entire Millennial Reign period and even the point of all creation is that God just loves. He just loves. Somehow love is what He is…I don’t know how, I don’t know what that looks like…but I read and watch His character and His choices and I know it to be true. God loves me and you unconditionally and has a perfect and powerful plan for us both. Trust Him and see the superiority of what He can do with your life!