Our home fellowship had a rousing discussion yesterday as we dug into the Torah portion (Lev. 9-11) and the Haftarah (Ez. 36:16-38). In the midst of the Haftarah, I had an ‘a ha!’ moment. Walk with me as we consider something very important in the restoration of Israel.
Ezekiel 36:22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the
heathen, whither ye went.
23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
25 THEN will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
While I have often focused on the knowledge that God is going to do this for HIS name’s sake and this closely parallels the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31, which we’ll discuss in a minute, this time as we read the word ‘THEN’ jumped off the page!
We are not cleansed and given a new heart until after we are in the Land! Interesting!! I needed confirmation!
Deuteronomy 30 seems to confirm this sequence.
“So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you [a]call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you, 2 and you return to the Lord your God and [b]obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, 3 then the Lord your God will restore [c]you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 If your outcasts are at the ends of the [d]earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will [e]bring you back. 5 The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
6 “Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your [f]descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
This passage seems to agree to a faltering obedience that comes from a right heart attitude, but the circumcision of the heart does not occur until after we are back in the Land.
Again, this sequence seems to be confirmed in Ezekiel 37:24-28!!
The simple point is that we do not have to be perfect or walking in uniformity to be brought back. That is not to say that we don’t have to be trying, but rather our heart attitude is of utmost importance. We must have the desire and part of that desire will be evidenced in our love for each other instead of bickering over dates, phases of the moon and pronunciations!
Months ago I wrote a post titled Learning to Color Within the lines… Upon review, that article clearly and succinctly explains how and why we need to learn to walk in unity. Only after we are returned to the Land will the Mashiach replace our stony, albeit softened, hearts with circumcised hearts of flesh.
I know some readers are scratching their collective heads because I seem to indicate that I do not believe the New Covenant is in effect. If you are asking that, you are correct. Based on what the New Covenant text says, we cannot possibly be in the New Covenant. In fact, the ‘everlasting covenant of peace’ mentioned in Ezekiel 37:26 is the New Covenant, a covenant not yet ratified.
A simple reading of the New Covenant in Jeremiah or in its two quoted places in Hebrews demonstrates that we are not in the New Covenant.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law (Torah) within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Besides the glaring fact that the New Covenant is with the House of Israel and the House of Judah (no Gentiles mentioned here or anywhere else…. time to figure out who you are if you claim to be adopted or grafted in…), the Scripture clearly states in unambiguous terms that the New Covenant will write the TORAH on our hearts. Any idea that the Law has been or will be done away with is an utterly false man-made construct from the pit of Hell. (I hope I was clear enough, there…. 😉 )
The sign that we are in the New Covenant as stated in Jeremiah 31 and exactly quoted in Hebrews 8 is that ‘they will not teach again each man his neighbor….know the Lord, for they will all know Me…‘ Are we there yet? I think not, else I would be doing something besides trying to share this and other Scriptures with family, friends and neighbors.
I highly recommend Of Elephants and Theologians….
So, where are we in all of this? We are stumbling toward Jerusalem. We are learning, in however a faulty manner, to walk in His ways according to the Torah of Moshe and by the grace of our Messiah Who by His Ruach draws us to be obedient.
Let us walk in grace and humility showing compassion for those not yet awake and charity toward those who may exercise the freedoms in Torah a little differently that we do. Let us be a people who recognize where we are: we have not arrived. Rather, we are on a journey that has quite a bit yet to go and we need each other!! Let us walk in unity!
Shavua tov!!
11:3 Restoration 
I have been seeing this for a while now as a possibility but didn’t jump the fence mostly because it’s not the usual way of thinking and I didn’t have much confirmation from others that I saw it right. I have been waiting for Father to make it clear. I recently read a book given to me that was written by the First Fruits of Zion folks. They are not Two House, but they are Brother Judah and DO have much to offer that we haven’t seen just as we have much to offer that they haven’t see. There is a paradigm shift within that book that makes a lot of sense and as I read what you wrote here, I felt like it was my confirmation. There is good info in that book and I highly suggest it…….The Sacrifices. Thanks for this. Anxious to hear what others see and say.
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The next question then becomes “when”.
It would appear when is “after” Messiahs return and “Shiloh” comes:
Isa 11:1 And a Shoot goes out from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch (Netzar) will bear fruit out of his roots.
Isa 11:2 And the Spirit of YAHWEH shall rest on Him; He will have the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and power, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of YAHWEH.
Isa 11:3 And He is made to breathe in the fear of YAHWEH. But He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears.
Isa 11:4 But He shall judge the poor in righteousness, and shall decide rightly for the meek of the earth. And He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and He shall cause the wicked to die with the breath of His lip.
Isa 11:5 And righteousness shall be the encircler of His loins, and faithfulness the encircler of His loins.
Isa 11:6 And the wolf shall live with the lamb; and the leopard shall lie with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy shall lead them.
Isa 11:7 The cow and the bear shall feed, their young shall lie together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Isa 11:8 And the infant shall play on the hole of the asp; yea, the weaned child shall put his hand on the viper’s den.
Isa 11:9 They shall not do evil, nor destroy in all My holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of YAHWEH, as the waters cover the sea.
Isa 11:10 And it shall be in that day, the Root of Jesse stands as a banner of His people; nations shall seek to Him; and His resting place shall be glorious.
Isa 11:11 And it shall be in that day, YAHWEH shall again set His hand, the second time, to recover the remnant of His people that remains, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the coasts of the sea.
Isa 11:12 And He shall lift up a banner for the nations, and shall gather the outcasts of Israel, and gather those dispersed from Judah, from the four wings of the earth.
Isa 11:13 And the envy of Ephraim shall turn off; and Judah’s foes shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not trouble Ephraim.
Isa 11:14 But they shall fly onto the shoulder of the Philistines to the west; together they shall plunder the sons of the east, the stretching of the hand on Edom and Moab and the sons of Ammon; they will obey them.
Isa 11:15 And YAHWEH shall utterly destroy the tongue of the sea of Egypt; and with His scorching wind He shall wave His hand over the River, and shall strike it into seven torrents, and make one tread it with shoes.
Isa 11:16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant of His people, those left from Assyria, as it was to Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.
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34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,
So who is your brother and your neighbor?
Who are we to be yoked with??? Yes we try n grab some out of the fire but who is our Mishpoochah/family?
Just a thought?
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Awesome thought. I was listening to Steve’s teaching, and he said the same about the New Covenant, and about us being transported to a place to be with Him where HE will restore and gather us Himself! Thank you for all your words of encouragement that you share continually. You are a blessing! Praying for you and yours! Barbara
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The new covenant is so misunderstood by most people it seems. We have His sureity, we have the earnest money so to speak of this covenant yet it will not be fully in effect till Messiah returns. But until them we are to live as if we are walking in the kingdom already. Having an open pliable heart for Yah to imprint His ways upon is what we strive for each day or at least I do! Just think if we are this excited about things what will we feel like when He returns!
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Agreed. The hardest lesson for us to learn is patience. I believe we’re nowhere near where many think we are in the timeline. I’ll openly admit I could be wrong. We need to learn what it means to allow His will to unfold rather than try to make it happen. Every time men try to make the will of Yah happen, they ultimately create the enemies of Yah’s people (Abraham and Sarah, Lot and his daughters). It is ironic that when Messiah returns, prophetically speaking, judgement is poured out on both the enemies of Jerusalem on the outside and the whore who resides in and rules from it at the time of His coming.
Patience folks.
Love Elohim and keep the commandments for this is the duty of all men…..
Shalom
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‘occupy till I come’ !!!!!!!!
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Very interesting!! John and I had a great discussion about this. Thanks for some great Shabbat discussion fodder.
The only area in which we found ourselves having to clarify what we are understanding from your article was your suggestion that the New Covenant comes when we are “in the Land.” You are quite correct that this is what the verses literally say, but we wonder if that phrase is not perhaps a euphemism for “in the Kingdom.”
Since some of us are in the Land now and are still dealing with incomplete knowledge, and scripture also tells us that even AFTER Messiah’s return, people will STILL be arriving in the Land (Isa 66:19-20), we felt that it was more accurate for us to see the phrase ‘in the land’ as a reference to Messiah coming into His physical Kingdom.
It will be at Messiah’s return and at the establishment of His earthly Kingdom that, the Word tells us, we will “know even as also [we are] known” (1Cor 3:12), and at that time we will NOT have teach one another to know Him!!
We agree, of course, that the Word is talking about the physical Land being occupied by His people under the Kingship of Messiah. The Land is indeed a critical element of the New Covenant! I am only now beginning to understand HOW important it is. Just as a nation’s capital is chosen by its people and represents the best the nation has to offer, so The Land has been chosen by the Creator and is to represent all the best that He has to offer. It is HOLY.
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Both Isaiah 11 and Ezekiel 36 place the return AFTER Messiah’s appearance. Remember, it’s in the day He brings peace (Shiloh) He calls us from the nations to Him, Not in the day He calls us to the land He returns according to Isaiah 11. Also, remember, the first one claiming to bring peace is the imposter. According to Ezekiel 36 we are sprinkled with clean water AFTER returning to Him and will be brought to a place where walking in His ways will be second, no, first nature to us and no need to teach as we will all be instinctively obedient. We live now as betrothed living by faith the reality to come when the bridegroom shows up to take us into His house.
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Come quickly Yeshua!!
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