Daily Java: In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the fall of the city—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me and he took me there. In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city. He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze; he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. The man said to me, "Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see." (Ezekiel 40:1-4)
These three or four chapters are so odd. Ezekiel is standing around and a either very tanned man like bronze or a man with bronze skin came up to him with a measuring rod that was about 10 feet long and told him to come with him. he then proceeded to measure all of the temple area in Jerusalem. He even goes into excruciating detail with the width of the doorframes and everything.
What is the point? What purpose does such meticulous detail serve?
In Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
In other words, God knows you. And God knows exactly what it is that he wants of you. And also God knows his plans for you, down to the very inch.
He said to Ezekiel, here is my plan for you. Here are the things I want you to do. Here is the temple I want you to worship in. And here is a guy to measure it so that you can know all of the intimate details of it.
After he measured it, in Ezekiel 43, the glory of the Lord came back into it. God said, now that you know that I know exactly all there is in this place, I am coming back. And I want you to do things the way I told you.
The Israelites had gotten complacent and to the point that they were just doing the stuff with no concern about the God behind the stuff. Kind of like Christians who hire a preacher and a song director and some teachers and then go to church when they want to, thinking they have fulfilled their obligation to God.
God told Ezekiel that this was serious business, that to him it was real. And that it needed to be real to the Israelites, too.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13). God knows what he wants for us down to the smallest detail.
What we need to do is accept it.
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