Our first theme for 2025 is RESTORATION. I am considering the entire 70-year period in the history of Israel. It can teach us much regarding restoration. While we can learn lessons from history, we must also seek God to achieve and receive restoration in our day. We need to understand the deeper requirements for experiencing spiritual restoration. Former acts of God can be indicators, but other requirements can only be received and perceived when we seek Him. So whilst history is there to teach us there is no established and rigid pattern.
I believe that what this theme is to be is a warning to the modern day Church, because we have come to depend upon well worn Biblical truths, traditionally visited without any deep investigation on their foundation, and the heresies that abound, the errors on some of the faith camps within the Church universal. It seems a bit chaotic today. We receive contradictory messages. These come from denominational division lines, doctrinal lines, ecclesiastical differences, and different Word interpretations. Therefore, due to political instabilities, wars, and diseases, the need for a global restoration is clear. Financial instability and scandals within Church structures make it even more necessary for Christians everywhere to have a restoration from God, as I believe that God may leave major structures without His glory and covenant, experienced in Ezekiel 10. The departure of God’s glory was in phases, but it was dislocated from where it should rest, but because of infidelity of God’s people, God forsook His dwelling place with man.
The Book of Ezekiel in a sense is a prophetic and heavenly look at the Captivity from God’s perspective. It is Ezekiel, a priest, at the River Chebar, 30th year of the Captivity sees heaven open. He hears and meets with a shadow of Jesus, in that chapter 1 of his book. Here we see Ezekiel understand the Captivity from a heavenly perspective. There is a need for a heavenly perspective for our days.
We must establish what was the reason for the Captivity, and its objective to, to understand what pursuit in prayer and study we must take in this series.
The Reason of the Captivity
The reason for the Captivity was that the priesthood, king and people had become a nation of covenant breakers. It was for the breaking of covenant reestablished in 2 Chronicles 7, that God began the process of dispossessing the priests of their Temple, the King of His Throne and the people of their homes. The invasion of Nebuchadnezzar into Jerusalem was violent, the captives taken out in chains, and as they looked back over their city they mourned the catastrophe that had overtaken them.
By taking them to a land where they possessed nothing, were subject to the favour of those in a foreign land, where their surroundings were scarce, where there was no more King that they knew, no Temple to Yahweh, their God, so their world is broken up, because it reflected the depth of their covenant breaking.
It makes you wonder what is the effect today of our covenant breaking. In fact the majority of preaching does not bring any covenantal context. We seem to think that the New Covenant based upon better promises by the Blood of Jesus, is so full of grace that we can seem to stretch the idea of Grace to a licentious limit. Yet it would be interesting to discern and identify manifestations of God’s judgment on our covenant breaking.
The Objective of the Captivity
Ezekiel 36 hits upon the objective of 70 years of Captivity. Firstly, 70 years are 2 generations. The generation as a whole that went into Captivity were not the ones who came out of Captivity. Some did outlive their generation as we see in Nehemiah, when the new Temple was constructed, they wept because it did not match the majesty of Solomon’s Temple, they wept.
Secondly, Ezekiel points to a transformation of heart, where God would write His Laws upon the human heart. He would cause His people to have an intimate interaction with His Laws and His Word. The idolatry that was practiced in the years preceding the Captivity was a result of the the lack of transformational power of the Old Covenant to transform the human heart.
Thirdly, we need to establish the root of this idolatry, where it comes into our faith and shapes it, taking us away from truth. We see this process at work in the modern day. We have a whole series to deepen our understanding, and tear down some traditions about truths concerning this period in Israel’s history which changed their trajectory and prepared them for the Messiah. As we study this period in history we verify that even in this situation God cared for His people in that period.
I verify with all the confusions, upheavals, losses of this time, we live in similar conditions as the Captivity, and in my considerations from the ending of our Christmas series, it is pertinent to prepare God’s people for more difficult times. Whilst the world seems to rest upon the premise that a Trump presidency will quieten things down, my own sensations, discernment tells me otherwise. Depending upon a political system to rectify spiritual issues is a deception. It is up to the Church covenant community to make corrections with God directly. If “Captivity” of sorts is to be experienced by His people then may we be prepared for that.
Concluding words
This series is not to investigate the Captivity based in theology, but take historical and prophetic elements of that period, see whatever parrallels of our day to whether we also are facing similar circumstances. Also take into consideration what eschatology (study of end times) to situate ourselves in God’s eternal programme. May we be of the right heart to receive correction from the Lord. The state of heart of those who preceded the Captivity were at best presumptuous and thought they could superficially depend on Temple and Priesthood to cover them. They did not count upon the decisive way God dealt with them. We need to understand that our losses may have God’s desiring to alert us to a certain presumption on our part. May we take this series to be a journey of correction so that we may walk intimately with His Word and His Will.
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