Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 3 * PART 2 * BOOK 63
THE PALESTINIAN COVENANT – PART 2
Once again, for those of you in the studio audience, we’ll pick right up where we left off in Ezekiel 34. For those of you joining us on television, for sake of new listeners that have just caught our program for the first time, we’re a simple Bible study. We don’t try to get too theological. I guess my number one prerogative is to help people see what the Book really says.For example, in this Age of Grace, we teach that for salvation, from Paul’s writing of I Corinthians 15:1-4, you must believe that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose again, plus absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing else goes with that for salvation! It doesn’t matter what I think or say. It doesn’t matter what some denominational teacher says, but what does the Word of God say?
So, we are presently looking at the covenant promises, especially between God and Israel, and how everything is leading up to His Second Coming, when He will establish that glorious heaven on earth kingdom, and Israel will come to the fruition of all of these Old Testament promises. All right, we’re picking up our text, if you will, in Ezekiel chapter 34, where the promise is that Israel will one day have the land of promise. After all, they are God’s chosen people, and God is going to make sure that they get every square acre that He deems for them to have.
We were in chapter 34, and I’m going to jump down now to chapter 34 verse 24, where God is speaking to the Nation of Israel. He says:
Ezekiel 34:24a
“And I the LORD will be their God, (Now remember, this is all looking forward to the Kingdom Age. It hasn’t happened yet.) and my servant David…” Now, mark that one down, because you see, the next covenant we’re going to be talking about is the Davidic Covenant, a covenant that God made between Himself and David. All right, so always be aware of this term David. It’s intrinsic to prophecy.
Ezekiel 34:24b-25
“…and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it. 25. And I will make with them a covenant (There’s that word again.) of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.” In other words, it’s going to be a place of complete safety. No fear of anything that could harm them.
Ezekiel 24:26
“And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.” All upon the promises made to the Nation of Israel.
All right, now let’s jump across to chapter 36, and then in a little bit we’ll come back to chapter 35. But in chapter 36, we continue this whole theme that, after Israel has been dispersed into the nations of the world, God will supernaturally bring them back to their homeland against all odds. If you’ve read anything at all about the years leading up to the Nation of Israel becoming a nation in 1948, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. They were under constant opposition from Great Britain, who, at that time, was the ruling force in the world. The Arab world was in constant opposition, and yet in spite of it all, the Jews ended up in the land and began clearing the land and made it ready for production. So, now in Ezekiel 36 verse 1, God continues with these prophecies concerning Israel’s coming into the land.
Ezekiel 36:1
“Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:” Remember, like I said in the last program, all the Old Testament mountains of Israel are in the present day West Bank. They are under Arab control. But the day will come when they will once again be part of the homeland of Israel.
Ezekiel 36:2
“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:” Well, isn’t that exactly what the Arab world is doing tonight? Hey, it’s ours and we’re going to enjoy it! But they had nothing to enjoy until Israel came and got it into production. Then, they came in and became usurpers of all this.
Ezekiel 36:3
“Therefore (Because the enemies of Israel are claiming a right to the land.) prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they (Israel’s enemies) have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, (or the Gentile world) and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:” In other words, how Israel has been constantly held down and under derision by the rest of the world. Now verse 4:
Ezekiel 36:4-5a
“Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen (or the Gentiles) that are round about; 5. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea (which is another portion of the Arab world) which have appointed my land into their possession…” Ring a bell? My, it’s in front of us every day, these very things. They will claim it as their own.
Ezekiel 36:6
“Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame (or the persecution and the oppression) of the heathen:” Or the Gentile world. Well, we won’t take any more verses now. Let’s come all the way down, in this same chapter, to verse 24, because I like to pick out these verses that are so explicit and yet so simple. You don’t have to be a theologian or a rocket scientist to figure out what this says. It’s plain English.
Ezekiel 36:24
“For (God says) I will take you (the Children of Israel, the Chosen People) from among the heathen, (What did Moses say back in Deuteronomy? ‘When you’ve been scattered into every nation under heaven, you will return.’ Well, now this is how Ezekiel puts it.) and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into (Not the Arab’s land, but whose land?) your own land.” It’s always been theirs. Even though God sovereignly uprooted them, God never took away the deed promises to the Nation of Israel that it’s their land. Even though He chastises the nation by uprooting them and scattering them, yet He never gave that land to anybody but to the Children of Israel.
All right, now we can come on over into chapter 37 and the vision of the dry bones.
Most of you know that one. I don’t have to go through those verses. But always remember that the dry bones are merely a picture of Israel out in the dispersion amongst the nations. Israel out of the land of blessing is just like a corpse. So, the picture was of these bones depicting the Nation of Israel in dispersion, and they were very white, because they’d been out there for centuries. But, now you see, come down to verse 11. These bones have come together, they have come back to life, and here is the explanation of the symbolism of the vision in verse 11.
Ezekiel 37:11a
“Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones (that he saw in that valley vision) are the whole house of Israel:…” Now, I think most of you know there has been a theological teaching abroad for many, many years that the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom were lost, and there’s really only two tribes left for the end-time. Well, now wait a minute. Do two tribes compose ‘the whole house of Israel’? No way! No way!
So right here we have evidence that the ten tribes were never lost. They were always a part of Judah and Benjamin. And so, the whole house of Israel has never disappeared from view, it is still an entity and I maintain that even today God knows what tribe every Jew is connected to. I don’t care where he is or where he’s been, God knows what tribe he belongs to. All right, so here we have it that the whole house of Israel is depicted in these bones, and now he says, verse 12:
Ezekiel 37:12
“Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, (Israel) I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.” Now, just to show you how theologians can foul up and corrupt the Scriptures, one guy was trying to tell me one time that this was just a picture of lost mankind. That the salvation of lost mankind was depicted here in these bones coming to life. Well, now how ridiculous can you get? This is strictly a picture of Israel in dispersion brought back to the land of promise.
All right, now we can come down to verse 15. God’s going to show a further illustration that all the tribes of Israel are still intact. None of them have been lost. None of them have disappeared. They’re all ready for the return of Christ. All right, verse 15:
Ezekiel 37:15-16
“The word of the LORD came again, unto me, saying, 16. Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, (Now, just picture this in your mind. Here you’ve got a piece of wood, and they were to write upon it For Judah, the Southern Kingdom.) and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:” In other words, you’ve heard me teach before, that shortly after the kingdom was divided there was a migration of all the ten tribes to the north down into Judah. So, here we have that depicted, not only Judah and Benjamin, but also representatives of all the other ten tribes are now with them in Judah. But God is also going to make sure we understand that He has not forgotten the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom.
Now, just to show you how the New Testament is in full accord, keep your hand in Ezekiel, we’re going to come right back. Jump all the way up to Acts chapter 2, Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. When these big wheel theologians try to tell people that the Nation of Israel has disappeared, that the present day Jews aren’t Jews at all, they’re something else, well, I can’t help but differ.
Now, here, as late as probably around 30 AD, shortly after Pentecost, in fact this is the day of Pentecost, so this would be at the same time as the crucifixion. Now, look how Peter looks at it on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter 2 and we’ll be looking at this when we come to the Davidic Covenant as well, but here he says in verse 36:
Acts 2:36A
“Therefore (because of the prophecies concerning David and the Nation of Israel back in the book of Psalms, therefore, Peter says:) let all the house of Israel know assuredly,…”Well, what “all the house of Israel” is he talking to? The Jews out in front of him. They, too, were represented by the twelve tribes of Israel, as late as Pentecost. Then Paul comes back in his epistles, and he refers to the “house of Israel.” Not just Judah and Benjamin, but the whole twelve, or if you want to include the half-tribes, the thirteen or fourteen tribes in total. In Revelation chapter 7, it names all 12 of the tribes being sealed. So, they were never lost.
All right, back to Ezekiel chapter 37 verse 17, and these two sticks, one representing the southern kingdom and one representing the northern kingdom. The Lord says:
Ezekiel 37:17
“And join them one to another (in other words end to end) into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.” Well, now what’s the symbolism? It will no longer be a divided nation. It’s going to be a nation comprised of the whole. That’s the symbolism. This stick becomes one even as they were before the kingdom divided.
Ezekiel 37:18-19
“And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? 19. Say unto them, (Now, here comes the explanation.) Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will (sometime in the future) take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, (That is one of the tribes of the Northern Kingdom.) and the tribes of Israel his fellows, (That’s the Northern Kingdom.) and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, (which was the Southern Kingdom) and make them one stick, and they (those twelve tribes) shall be one (God says) in mine hand.” Now verse 21, here comes that repeated promise. My, if you don’t get anything else out of these two programs, you’ll get one thing straight, that after Israel has been scattered into the nations of the world, God’s going to bring them back, and He’s going to yet fulfill all the promises concerning His covenant people. All right, now you come down to verse 26:
Ezekiel 37:26
“Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; (That is, with the Nation of Israel.) it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: (It’s going to go right on into the new heavens and the new earth one day.) and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.” Then, verse 28:
Ezekiel 37:28a
“And the heathen (the non-Jewish world) shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel,…” Now, it can’t get any plainer than that. They are His chosen people. They are His covenant people.
Even though they are guilty of rank unbelief and have been all the way up through history. My, just go back and read some of the books of history, Kings and the Chronicles and then the Book of Isaiah, and you’ll find Israel’s constant rebellion. Yet, God never gave up on them. As He told David and as we’ll see in the Davidic Covenant, “Even though they commit iniquity, My mercy shall never depart from them.” God will never let go of the Nation of Israel. All right, verse 28 again:
Ezekiel 37:28
“And the heathen (the non-Jewish world) shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary (or His dwelling place) shall be in the midst of them for evermore.”Now, we’ll come to that when we get to the New Covenant, but let’s put that on hold for now. All right, now how are we going to deal with the Arab world and their hatred and their opposition to the Nation of Israel? Well, it’s all here in prophecy.
Now, come across the page, at least in my Bible, to chapter 38 of Ezekiel. Here we have the war and the invasion, as most of you have heard it, of Gog and Magog. But I’m just thinking that most people today do not understand what class or what group of people are really involved in this great invasion.
All right, let’s start, I think we’ve got time, right up at verse 2 in Ezekiel 38. Now remember, this battle is going to take place shortly after the Tribulation begins. Now, for years and years I just felt isolated as I taught that. I never would find anybody to agree with that teaching. Everything I ever read put it back there with Armageddon or at the mid-point. But now, believe it or not, I’m getting to see that more and more people are agreeing that this is going to take place shortly after the Tribulation begins. There’s going to be an invasion by people to the north of Israel, and God will destroy them on the mountains of Israel. All right, let’s look who they are.
Ezekiel 38:2a
“Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog,…” Now, there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that this is a reference to Moscow and Russia. They will be the ringleaders of all this, but look who their cohorts will be.
Ezekiel 38:3-4a
“And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4. And I will turn thee back,… “ In other words, God will providentially cause the military to do this. I think they’re getting ready even today. Don’t ever think for a minute that the Russian army or the Russian military power is defunct. They’re as viable as ever.
In fact, I was listening to one of my old tapes back in the Book of Revelation made in ‘91’ or ’92,’ and I made the same statement – you may think the Russian Bear is dead, but don’t you believe it. They are manufacturing just as many arms today as they ever have. Their espionage people are multiplying by tremendous numbers. They’re not dead. They are getting ready for this final great invasion. All right, now read on, verse 4 again:
Ezekiel 38:4a
“And I will turn thee back, (In other words, I will providentially turn you.) and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor,…” Now of course, that’s the language of antiquity, and you just bring that up into present day, and you’ve got tanks and helicopters and whatever it takes to make an invasion. All right, now look who comes with the Russian leadership.
Ezekiel 38:5
“Persia, (Who’s Persia today? Iran. Religiously speaking, what’s the nation of Iran? Muslim – ninety-nine and nine tenths percent Muslim. All right…) Ethiopia, (Down there in Africa, or if there was another one someplace else, it still doesn’t make that much difference. Ethiopia, religiously what are they? Muslim) and Libya with them; (Gadhafi’s Libya, what are they? Muslim – all of North Africa is Muslim, remember.) all of them with shield and helmet:” Now, you jump up to 6 and you find:
Ezekiel 38:6a
“Gomer;…” Well, that’s East Europe. You know, I didn’t realize until we had that Yugoslavian War, that Albania and most of Yugoslavia are totally Muslim. I didn’t know that! But that’s Eastern Europe and now, on top of that, they are migrating westward, so by the time all this takes place, a good portion of Eastern Europe will be under the heavy hand of the Muslim religion. No doubt about it. All right, so here we have all these nations listed with Russia, and they’re all Muslim. All right, now verse 7:
Ezekiel 38:7-8a
“Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. 8. And after many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land (What land?) that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel,…” Well, goodness sakes, what’s that the vivid picture of? Israel today! Israel was totally devastated by the Roman invasion in 70 AD. It was overrun by one empire after another for the next 1900 and some years, and then all of a sudden, since about the turn of the century, the 1900’s, the Jews have been coming in and have been reinstituting the land and bringing in irrigation. The land, as we said earlier, is blooming like a rose. All right, so here is the picture of Israel as they now sit ripe for this latter day invasion.
Ezekiel 38:9a
“Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,…” And so on and so forth. All right, now then, for sake of time, I have to come all the way over, skip all the verses, you can read them when you get home this evening, and let’s come down to verse 21. As these hordes of the Muslim world will come on an invasion on the mountains of Israel, from the north. They’ll probably come down through Lebanon and through the Bekaa Valley. All of the present day Syrian and Persian or Iran, and Iraq, that whole Muslim part of the world, I think, will unite with a Russian leadership, but God’s going to intervene supernaturally.
Ezekiel 38:21
“And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man’s sword shall be against his brother.” Now goodness sakes, what’s going to happen? In their confusion, they’ll be killing each other – multitudes of them. On top of that, verse 22:
Ezekiel 38:22-23
“And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, (In other words, their battalions and their divisions of troops and whatever.) and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23. (and God says) Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.” So, this is not the worldwide destruction of the Tribulation. This is the singular destruction of the Muslim world, as under Russian leadership they invade the mountains of Israel, shortly after, we feel, the Tribulation begins.
All right, now in the minute or two we have left, back up with me now to chapter 35, and we’ll see God’s reason for coming down on the Muslim world with such wrath. Now, the point I always want to make, “Can God save the Arab, or the Muslim?” Absolutely! Absolutely! We can pray for their salvation. In fact, we’ve got a few ex-Muslims in our listening audience. We love them. We don’t have hatred toward them. It’s just that we can’t comprehend why they have such a hatred for God’s chosen people. Well, here’s the reason from Scripture. This isn’t Les Feldick’s idea. I can love the Arab world, but that doesn’t change it, but here, look at what God decrees.
Ezekiel 35:1-4
“Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, (Now you remember, that was the home of Esau.) and prophecy against it. 3. And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O Mount Seir, (or, oh tribe of Esau) I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 4. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.” Not for salvation, but by virtue of His wrath. Now, here comes the reason, and you can see it in every day’s newspaper.
Ezekiel 35:5
“Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end:” Suicide bombers? It doesn’t make any difference how they do it. They’ve just killed the Jew out of simply wanting to get rid of that group of people that they have so much hatred for, and God says that His wrath is going to fall upon the Muslim world.