EZEKIEL - CHAPTER 20 -"LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY"
Chapter 20: LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY
Taught by: Carolyn Sissom
Tuesday Morning Bible Study, April 1, 2008
(We have both, MILK AND HONEY at LWC along with the Beef)
It is prophetic at Little White Church that we have the colonies of bees making honey all over the ranch. We have the longhorns giving milk to their young and they are a breed known for their "Beef" (meat).
: With this chapter Ezekiel begins a series of oracles from 20-23. These are the last prophecies before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. This chapter is a history of rebellion and reviews the past, indicting the nation for its present sins. The prophet gives a historical survey of Israel. He described this figuratively in Chapter 15. God’s people had been consistently immoral.
Here is a historical narrative of the people’s long-continued sinfulness and the Lord’s long-continued mercy and goodness! Verses 5-32 is a historical narrative.
- 5-9 – in Egypt
- 10-14 – in the wilderness
- 15-26 – the new generation
- 27-29 – Israel in the land.
- 30-32 – Israel: the present condition
Verse 6: “In that day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the LAND that I had give the, flowing with mil and honey, which is the glory of all LANDS:
Bill Britton…a LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL LANDS!!... I thought, ‘Lord are you really talking about Palestine? Has any one made a trip to the Holy Land?...Is it really more beautiful than other lands…I have been to a lot of different countries in the world…if you are going to judge this from strictly a natural standpoint, tree for tree, river for river, garden for garden, Palestine is not the most beautiful of all the countries. So what is he talking about here? He is talking about a place in God, a land in the Spirit that is the most beautiful place where anybody on earth can live! The most beautiful life you can have on earth is to serve the Lord! To walk with him…to walk in the spirit. It’s a beautiful land!”
Verses 33-34 – shows that God will wean them from their sin. “As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, 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, with fury poured out.
37-44 – “And I will cause you to pass under the rod, 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. (40)...For in my holy mountain in the mountain of the height of Israel, says the Lord God, there shall 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 first fruits of your oblations, with all your holy thing. I will accept you with your sweet savor, when I bring you out from the people, and there you out of the countries wherein you have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.”
I had a vision in 1999 when I first came to this location. I saw the Lord standing at the gate in a red robe with an out stretched rod. He was standing under the big oak tree. Through the gate, sheep were coming in passing under the rod. Just down the road, there was a broken place in the fence. The sheep coming in through there were lost. We have two kinds of people who we will minister to from this place, the “elect” and the “lost”. I could comment on the cows on the ranch producing milk and the bees make honey. (tongue in cheek)
Chapter 21 – The Sword of the Lord
I last taught this chapter on October 29, 2006. The teaching is on the website. It was when the Lord had me purchase the painting of the Sword. The title of the message is when your Sword becomes a cross or your Cross becomes a Sword. I will give a brief overview.
This is the message. Some of the study quotes are from Kelly Varner, PPT; the message is direct from Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Also, there is a quote from Matthew Henry.
“This chapter speaks more prominently and fully of the Sword of the Lord than any other chapter of the Bible. The Sword is mentioned 79 times in the Book of Ezekiel and 14 times in this chapter. Fourteen is the Bible number of salvation and deliverance.”
“The Sword is The Word. The Word is a Person”
“It has been called the Sword Song or the prophecy of the Sword. In the Hebrew text, 10: 45-49 is joined to this chapter.” In view of the present fire storms in California, I will include those verses in this study.
Verse 47: “Say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus says the Lord God; Behold I will kindle a fire in you and it shall devour every green tree in you, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: it shall not be quenched. Then said I, Ah Lord God! They say of me, does he not speak parables?
“Here the elders of Israel came to Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord (Ez.20:1). Since they had not first repented, God ignored the purpose for which they had come and then remonstrated with them for their abominations. In an effort to avoid the application of Ezekiel’s messages to themselves because of its unwelcome implications, they slandered his message as being to hard to
Understand. This was an excuse for hardening their hearts against remonstrance’s which need no explanation. Like the hearers of Jesus (Jn. 6:60), the hearers of Ezekiel claimed inability to understand as an excuse for hardening their hearts, which was an attempt to escape responsibility of responding to the truth.” (K.V. PPT)
In Chapter 21, The Sword is the Word of God. “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened to Him with whom we have to do.”(Heb. 4:12-13)
The Word of God is a Person. “”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
“THERE IS A SWORD COMPANY OF OVERCOMERS. IT IS JESUS CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. This is seen is the Messianic promise of Ezekiel 21:27”: “I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it and it shall be no more until He comes whose right it is; and I will give it to Him.
“Note the triple overturning of the Day of the Lord. This is a shaking in three realms, the body, the soul and the Spirit. (1 Thess. 5:23)” “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole Spirit, Soul and Body be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
21: 1-7 “And the Word of the Lord came to me saying,: Son of Man set your face toward Jerusalem and drop your word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, and say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord; Behold I am against you, and will draw forth My sword out of its sheath, and will but off from you the righteous and the wicked. Therefore shall My sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north? That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn forth MY SWORD out of its sheath: it shall not return any more. Sigh, therefore, you son of man with the breaking of your loins; and with bitterness sign before there eyes. And it shall be, when they say to you, Why sigh you? That you shall answer, For the tidings, because it comes: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall fain, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it comes and shall be brought to pass, says the Lord.
We are still speaking here of the work of the Word of God. This sword shall not return until the mission is accomplished.
Bill Britton says, “People are trying to come into perfection without the death of the old Adam man. They are trying to come into the Kingdom without going to the cross. As a result, we’re finding people saying, “we are already perfected. We already have Divine order; We’re already behind the veil. We already have everything. There are people who are trying to come into their individual kingship...doing it by the power of the carnal mind.., the psychic force… self-projecting in the Kingdom of God.”
This word of the Sword of the Lord or the Word of God that is quick and powerful and sharp will cleanse, purify and sanctify the Body, Soul and Spirit that we may walk in the Kingly anointing. This is when the Sword of the Word of God becomes our Cross.
When we are so full of the Word of God that the Word divides asunder the soul, the spirit and the marrow of the bones, we will suffer rejection, persecution, scorn, and mocking because the Word will either convict people to repentance or they will run from the presence of the Lord in rebellion.
These are the Christians who will follow Him to the river, but they won’t follow Him to the Cross.
21:8-17 “Again the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord; Say, A Sword, a Sword is sharpened, and also furbished: It sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? It contempts the rod of My son as every tree. And he has given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer. Cry and how, son of man: for it shall be upon My people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel; terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon My people: smite therefore upon your thigh. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contempt even the rod? And it shall be no more,”
This is when the Word of God is a correction that brings us in to repentance. The Sword is a person. He shall not forget the errand on which He is sent. It is a trial, and it is no more than a trial. It is a matter of comfort to the people of God, when his judgments are in the land that when “they are tried, they shall come forth as gold.” “In the midst of the trial, the proving of our faith will be the improving of it.” (Matthew Henry)
The prophet must not study for fine words, “a sword a sword and verse 14, let the sword be doubled. (Note the two crosses: (1) the painting, (2) the cross on the wall.)
Ezekiel 21: 18-27…appoint you two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come to Rabbath (a metropolis) of the Ammonites (principle of fleshly mixture), and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood ….to use divination; (his occultism), he made his arrows bright.” (Belomacy, the tossing of arrows with names of enemies on them and hepatoscopy, examining the liver of animals for omen, was highly developed in Babylon). And it shall be to them as false divination…You shall be taken with the hand wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come….remove the diadem, (the dominion of Adam and Satan) and take off the crown, this shall not be same; exalt him that is low , and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He (Jesus Christ of Nazareth) whose right it is, and I will give it to him. The diadem of the Priest and the Crown of the King is given to Jesus Christ and His church. This is the King-Priest ministry after the order of Melchizedek!”
(I took the Crown and placed it at the foot of the Sword/Cross)
The Lord is raising up a Sword Company, in whom the Word of God is sharpened, furbished and glitters. “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
CHAPTER 22: THE MAN, CHRIST JESUS
This chapter is an indictment against Jerusalem. It describes the City of Blood. Neither one section of the land nor one class of society is exempt from condemnation. These verses, like chapter 20, vindicate the Divine Justice upon Jerusalem. There, the emphasis was upon the sins of their ancestors; here, on their own abominations. Then we see the symbol of the smelting furnace (17-22), closed out by the sins of the prophets, the priests, the princes, and the people.
In chapter fifteen, Israel is likened to a useless vine. Here Ezekiel conveys the same truth under the figure of a smelting furnace. Israel had become all dross with no hope of being refined. She is a miserable compound and mixture of baser metals and dross.
(Verse30) – “And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.”
The “Man” that God sought for is the new creation man of chapter One. He is the Ox, the intercessor, reconciler, deliverer, savior, and peacemaker, and the repairer of the breach and makes up the hedge (wall). He becomes part of the wall which is salvation! (Isaiah 60:18) “Violence shall no more be heard in your land, wasting not destruction within your borders: and you shall call your walls SALVTION, AND YOU’RE GATES PRAISE.”
The Lord Himself provided that man. 1 Tim. 2:5: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, THE MAN, Christ Jesus. His burden is the unity of the people (Jn. 17) This MAN ALSO BECOMES A MANY-MEMBERED MAN (Ephesians 2:15: “having abolished in his flesh the enmity, e even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. (Ephesians 4:13) “Until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (24) “And that you put on the NEW MAN, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.”
In all these principles we can compare Abraham: (Genesis 20:7): “Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for you, and you shall live:
Moses (Exodus 32:11): “And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, ‘Lord, why does your wrath wax hot against your people, which you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
When the word says that He looked for a man. That means”
- – no prophet (discernment)
- - no priest (ministry)
- - no prince (authority)
- - no people (congregation)
Bro. Bill Britton: “After the Latter Rain revival seemed to pass, and there came the time when the Jesus People began to move, the full gospel businessmen, then the Charismatic’s came forth, and all this, and people said, ‘this is the day! We have come into new revelation. This is the day! Then we came along with messages on son ship. People began to talk about the manifested sons of God, about ruling on the throne, and they got new terminologies and said, “This is the day…’ But let me tell you something. The terminology is not the day! You can talk terminology, you can change your theme, but, when it comes right down to it, it is substance that counts. The substance of what God is and what He is doing and what He is imparting to the Church!...It’s what we finally titled, ‘self-projection’, or ‘faith-projection,’ concerning the idea that you can just speak a thing, and that’s the way it is. But folks spoke things, but they didn’t have the substance to bring it into being, and so it didn’t happen. The theology was tremendous…we’re walking in heavenly places, and all that, but we weren’t walking in victory, not even in the church or the home…but I want to see a people walking in what I see behind the veil…”
Next week we will start on the prophecies of the Judgment of the Seven Nations. (25-32)
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
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Scripture from King James Bible and text from Principles of Present Truth by: Kelly Varner and quotes from Bill Britton.