“You are to do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance; so that you are to make atonement in the temple.”
– Ezekiel 45:20
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you think that it would be like if your dad and ma decided to sell most everything that they have and moved to another country to begin all over again with new furniture and appliances. Your grandmaa and grandpaa did this when they – with your dad and Aunt Lynn, flew to Bolivia in 1978 to join the South America Mission field missionary team. Before moving into a house in Santa Cruz, Bolivia with his dad, ma and little sis, your dad lived with his dad and ma in a Clifton Park apartment in Wilmington, Delaware, in a duplex in Chatham, Delaware, in an apartment in Agawam, Massachusetts, with his dad’s dad and ma on their farm that is near Volga, South Dakota, with his dad and ma in an apartment in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in a house in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in a rented flat on Chicago’s west side, in a funeral home in Chicago, with his Uncle Daniel and Aunt Gloria in their house in Seaford, Delaware and at South America Mission’s mission base in Santa Cruz. How many times have you lived in a different place? Your grandmaa and grandpaa – before they left with your dad and Aunt Lynn for Bolivia, tightly packed a couple of fifty-five gallon metal drums and several fiber barrels with clothes, linens, silverware, dishes, pots and pans, pictures and lots of other small stuff – which they shipped to Bolivia. The drums and barrels finally showed up in Santa Cruz about three months after your grandmaa and grandpaa arrived there with your dad and Aunt Lynn. Your grandmaa and grandpaa have several times started over again in a new country or in a new place with new furniture and appliances. When your grandmaa and grandpaa moved to Guatemala City, Guatemala to join OC International’s Equipo SEPAL’s field missionary team that is based in Guatemala City, your grandmaa and grandpaa furnished their rented condominium with new furniture and appliances. Your grandmaa and grandpaa did the same thing when they moved from Guatemala City into their new condominium in Colorado Springs, Colorado when they moved to Colorado Springs to join the OC International headquarters staff.
Your grandmaa and grandpaa were never forced to make a move; the moves that your grandmaa and grandpaa made were made because God – as God the Father, clearly through God – as God the Spirit, led them to make the moves. A good number of the guys, gals and kids who were living in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Judah nearly 2600 years ago were forced by the Babylonian people group army to leave their homes and to make the long trek to Babylonia – where they survived as exiles in the country that had conquered them. The guys, gals and kids who had been living in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Judah about 2600 years ago were God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals. Before God’s specially chosen guys and gals were taken away from their central city and from the land that God had given them to always to have to live in as their very own land if . . . God sent prophet spokesmen to warn them of their pending doom and to prepare them for their return to their roots. God used one of His prophet spokesmen to tell His specially chosen guys and gals what was going to happen to them after they finished spending seventy years as exiles as a punishment for having rejected His mandated worship norms. Ezekiel was the spokesman who God – as God the Father, embedded among His specially chosen guys and gals as a voice of doom and a voice of hope. Ezekiel 45 is a continuation of a vision that God gave to Ezekiel. One of the things that Ezekiel saw in the vision was a carefully plotted out slice of land being allotted to the Levi tribal clan guys. The plot of land that Ezekiel saw in his vision – which was to be kept as a sacred district, was about seven miles long and about three miles wide. When God’s specially chosen guy and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, returned to the city of Jerusalem from being exiled in Babylonia, they were to build a new Jerusalem. The Levi tribal clan priests were to live in this sacred district as they made sacrifices in the temple sanctuary – in the Most Holy Place. God made it very clear in this vision that He was giving to Ezekiel what He expected Ezekiel to pass on to His specially chosen guys and gals when they returned to the city of Jerusalem – that He expected them to live honest lives in their new look city. God told His specially chosen guys and gals – through Ezekiel, that He expected them to always use accurate scales, an accurate ephah and an accurate bath. God also told His specially chosen guys and gals – through His prophet spokesman Ezekiel, that He expected them to give to Him special offering gifts including a sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat, a sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley, a tenth of a bath from each cor of oil and one sheep from every flock of two hundred sheep.
As God’s specially chosen guys and gals resettled in the city that would become a new Jerusalem, they would be able to begin a new life with a clean slate. God – through his prophet spokesman Ezekiel, – in verse 20, told His specially chosen guys and gals how they were to keep sin’s toxicity from affecting their lives, “You are to do the same on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance; so that you are to make atonement in the temple.” Because what God – as God the Father, overtly explained to His prophet spokesman Ezekiel in a detailed vision did not take place, your grandpaa is wondering if the new Jerusalem has yet to be built.
Ezekiel 45 (1001)