More Detail from Ezekiel
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When God desires a truth to be understood, and wants no room for misunderstanding to be possible by the honest Bible student, He repeats His message for emphasis in different ways in multiple passages, usually adding more details and facts to the tapestry He is weaving toward the full picture.
You have learned the book of Ezekiel describes a “watchman” (Eze 3:17; 33:1-9) to the nations of Israel who takes a warning message to these countries. It should be obvious that Ezekiel would have to speak to Israel’s return from a captivity she brought on herself because she would not listen to the words of God through the “watchman” sent to warn of the consequences of disobedience to God.
Here is a more detailed description of parts of the punishment leading up to the captivity, and the resultant escape of a remnant: “In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste [by nuclear attack], and the high places [false churches] shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols [the false gods who could not save Israel] may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezek. 6:6-7).
This describes national calamity and widespread destruction, and death on a staggering scale. Of the initial 600 million people who go into the Great Tribulation, only 200 million will survive the initial effects. We already saw that 200 million, one-third, will be victims of a surprise nuclear attack on the nations of the West. Another 200 million, another third, will die of resultant famine and disease epidemics. (Ezekiel 5:10-12, among other places, we saw referenced and explained these “thirds.”) The first two-thirds are, in effect, the “lucky” ones—because the remaining, surviving third goes into enslavement!
We will return to discuss a specific number within this final 200 million when it is time to see how many God says comprise the survivors.
Ezekiel continues: “Yet will I leave a remnant [yet again this term], that you may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when you shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember Me among the nations wherever they shall be carried captives, because I am broken [God’s attitude toward what He sees] with their whorish heart, which has departed from Me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations” (Eze 6:8-9).
The reason Israel will come weeping from captivity is because the survivors have come to “loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed.” This is because they have come to grips with how God saw their conduct. But what made them able to know His perspective?
Consider for a moment that someone will have to have told these millions what these evils were—what were the abominations—and why the captivity came. How else could they, at this point—at the moment of escape and liberation—know what brought their punishment? Recall that Isaiah said Israel would know how to serve God “in truth.”
Ask: Who would have told them what “truth” was? How would they have come to understand this? The Work of this Church and the succeeding work of the Two Witnesses are seen to be evident.
Ezekiel 20
The next passage is the longest one quoted, and it all comes from Ezekiel 20:1-49. There was no way to lessen the verses included, but they are broken into segments to better grasp what God wants the reader to comprehend. The setting is how Israel continually chose to pollute God’s Sabbaths. This disobedience is cited by God multiple times through the chapter. The reader would gain from a slow read of this long Bible description.
The passage opens with God’s fury being poured out on a sinful world at the outset of the Day of the Lord: “As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out [on the heathen around them as the Day of the Lord begins], will I rule over you: and I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein you are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out” (Eze 20:33-34). Sobering words!
The next section looks ahead through the remainder of the time up to the Return of Christ, and after, when God will offer Israel a new covenant: “And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, says the Lord God” (Eze 20:35-36).
Eze 20:37-40 are a kind of inset to God’s thinking. They look past the Day of the Lord to Christ’s Return, about a year after liberation from captivity, to when He will convert the remnant of Israel: “And I will cause you to pass under the rod [under the scepter of God’s authority], and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the Lord. As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord God; Go you [for the time being], serve you every one his idols [God’s anger is especially against all forms of religious pollution], and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto Me: but pollute you My holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, says the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.”
Eze 20:41-42 reset the timing of when the earlier verses are to be fulfilled: “I will accept you with your sweet savor, when I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries wherein you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen [they will all see what is happening]. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up Mine hand to give it to your fathers.”
It is unmistakably plain from this passage that God will bring His people back to their ancient homeland of Israel after they have been literally scattered across the world. This remnant will be mindful of everything in their past—thousands of years of it—that brought this most horrific punishment upon them, and are seen again to “loathe” themselves (next passage below).
Notice that God could have wiped them out entirely but chose not to, leaving the promised remnant: “And there shall you remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein you have been defiled; and you shall loathe yourselves [there this is again] in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings [or all would be destroyed], O you house of Israel, says the Lord God” (Eze 20:43-44).
Notice that Israel comes to “remember her ways” and “all her doings.” Ask again: How does she do this? What did she once hear that is now remembered—and where did she hear it? The only possibility is a warning coming back to mind that went unheeded.