Precise Blueprints

Read Ezekiel 40-43
 
Ezekiel 40:1-4 On April 28, during the twenty-fifth year of our captivity – fourteen years after the fall of Jerusalem – the LORD took hold of me. 2 In a vision from God he took me to the land of Israel and set me down on a very high mountain. From there I could see toward the south what appeared to be a city. 3 As he brought me nearer, I saw a man whose face shone like bronze standing beside a gateway entrance. He was holding in his hand a linen measuring cord and a measuring rod. 4 He said to me, “Son of man, watch and listen. Pay close attention to everything I show you. You have been brought here so I can show you many things. Then you will return to the people of Israel and tell them everything you have seen.”
 
GOD comes to Ezekiel 25 years after the first Jews went into exile into Babylon. This is 14 years after Babylon had utterly destroyed Jerusalem and the LORD’s temple and exiled more Jews from their homes. There are 45 years remaining in the exile.
   God had more messages for Ezekiel to deliver to the Jews. This time it is the message of restoration and rebuilding. Remember, the gospel is first the bad news of our sins, then the good news of God’s mercy to save. God speaks his mercy with a precise Temple rebuilding plan. Just as he had taken Ezekiel in the Spirit to Jerusalem to show him several visions of judgment, God then took Ezekiel in the Spirit to show Judah’s a new temple is planned.
   Be encouraged to see God’s grace in these chapters. Reading through the vision describing the four temple gates and the various courts, one may feel the details are beyond our need to know. But know this. We must understand how this Scripture is another revelation of God’s holiness. We have learned from the Exodus Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, the LORD God has a purpose for each detail. Remember, these physical constructions represent heaven and God’s holy character. They must be precise.
   Think for example of all creation. The precision with which the earth sits on its axis and orbits the sun must be exactly as it is. Off one degree, the earth could not sustain life. In the same manner, God’s salvation plan is established on the foundation of God’s exact words. We see this in God’s law requiring repentance through. God the Father is precise, he had to send God the Son to the sacrificial cross, so you would be precisely saved forever. Be glad the LORD God precisely provides the pathway for your salvation. If he did not, you would not know if you were saved.
   I urge you then to read this new temple blueprint with great gratitude and awe of God for two reasons. One, God didn’t have to restore the temple or call his people back to Judah. They had sinned. But in his mercy, God moved to restore the temple to continually remind the Jews of his Messiah promise.  
   Second, be in awe and wonder that God has done this in his plan to build the church into a living temple. Saved in Jesus, you are a living temple. 1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
   Celebrate each day that God is so precise. Worship him for the way his salvation blueprint builds your life anew and forever as God’s own.