Hi friends!  I have the blessed privilege of facilitating the study, Looking for the Blessed Hope, with a live group at my home church.  Part of this week’s study focuses on God’s promises to Israel as He prepared to bring them back into their homeland, and I want to share a bit of it with you.  So, grab your Bible and join us in Ezekiel 36.

According to verses 22-23, what is God’s reason for renewing Israel?  Despite profaning His name, God remains faithful to Israel!  In vv 24-30, there are many things God says He will do for His chosen people.  How many “I will” statements can you find?  What do those statements tell you about God’s commitment to Israel?

Verse 31 indicates that Israel will respond to God’s promises.  What is Israel’s response?  Do verses 31-32 sound harsh to you?  Perhaps so.  But God was not done with His chosen people…He was preparing a blessing for them.

Read verses 33-38 carefully.  This was God’s promise that He would prepare their land and bring them back into it!  Jews had been scattered throughout the world following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.  To this point, they were a people without a country, but God was about to change that!

That change happened May 14, 1948, when Israel became a nation again, and boy did He begin to move on their behalf!  He made an incredibly desolate land beautiful and fruitful again.  The Jezreel Valley is lush farmland that produces the most vibrant fruit and vegetables in the world.  The tiny land of Israel also exports more flowers than any other country in the world, and work is being done in the barren Negev Desert to make it bloom.

Here, we see prophecy partially fulfilled, as God is not yet done fulfilling the promises of Ezekiel 36.  But 2 Peter 3:9 reminds us that The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  The apostle Peter, in this passage regarding preparation of the end times, declares the Lord to be right on time!  We can trust that God will indeed be right on time with what concerns us, and that He will definitely be right on time with what concerns His chosen people!  His prophecy will be fully fulfilled in His time!

The promises of God are true and trustworthy!  If God ceases to keep His promises to His chosen people, what hope do we have?  Aren’t you glad that God and His Word are absolutely, 100% trustworthy?

PS: Interested in studying Looking for the Blessed Hope?  You’ll find links for the 10-week study in “blog format” on the left sidebar.  Enjoy the study!