Prophecy – Ezekiel 37-42

As I was reading the passage for today, it occurred to me that while it contains some of the most unconnected chapters in our reading of Ezekiel so far, there can be a common thread if we look at them from the aspect of the process of construction.

What is being constructed? Chapters 40 to 42 tell us that it is the temple of God and we know that we are the temple of God (1 Cor3:16). Therefore, this construction is actually the construction of a complete and impeccable us – a work that is still in progress.

Bible Passage:  Ezekiel 37-42

The Raw Materials

Firstly, we know that every construction work requires raw materials. It is also logical that the wealthier the client, the better and more expensive the raw materials would be.

Strangely though, the raw materials that God uses in building His spiritual temple are not the finest lumber, top grade cement, costly metal or precious stones. Instead, He uses dry bones. What’s more, these dry bones were left in the open, uncovered and exposed – extremely undignified and indecent according to Jewish custom.

Let us remember that we were once like these dry bones, without life and honour. Yet, when the word and Spirit of God works upon us, the dry bones, once scattered and without purpose, came together, bone to bone and became covered with sinew, flesh and skin (Ezek 37:7-10) to form an army.

This is an important reminder to us that what is precious about us is the word and the Spirit of God in us because without them, we return to being dry bones.

The Process

Next, we see that after the raw materials are ‘refined’, they become ‘an exceedingly great army’ (Ezek 37:10). This tells us our purpose and also suggests the type of process that leads to the completion of the construction work.

A good illustration of this is how the people in the time of Nehemiah rebuilt the city walls. The Bible describes how they did so:

Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built. And the one who sounded the trumpet [was] beside me. (Neh 4:17-18)

Although we are involved in the construction of a perfect temple of God, we must not forget that we are not merely construction workers but soldiers. This is to remind us that in this construction work, we have to constantly fight against our own lusts and desires as well as the wiles of the devil in order to complete this work.

The End Product

The end product, as I mentioned in the beginning, is a perfect temple of God. While there are many teachings we can learn concerning the temple from the Book of Ezekiel, I’ll touch on only three.

• It is square (Ezek 42:16-19)

The world today tells us not to be square, to be flexible and to ‘roll’ with the times. Yet, God’s standard is for us to be ‘square’ – being straight, even and upright. Thus, let us not bow under the pressure of the word to fit in and remain a square peg in the round hole of the world.

• It has a wall all around it (Ezek 42:20)

It is clearly stated that the wall all around the temple is to ‘separate the holy areas from the common’ (Ezek 42:20). For the spiritual temple of our bodies, do we build this wall or do we fail to keep out the common from the holy temple of God?

• It has chambers for singers and priests (Ezek 40:44-46)

Service without praise and thanksgiving becomes a chore and a drag. Have we fallen into the ennui where we work and work in church but feel no joy in our service? In the temple of God, there are priests as well as singers thus for us, our service must be accompanied by praise.

Today, as we continue our work of building a flawless temple of God, let us keep in mind the grace of God that allow dry bones to be built into His holy temple, the attitude we should have in this work as well as the end product God desires.