Two Sticks and a New Covenant

"'I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will likely be an eternal covenant. I will set up them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My living place will be with them; I might be their God, and they may be my people. Then the international locations will recognize that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.'"
~Ezekiel 37:26-28 (NIV).

Chapter 37 of Ezekiel is a maximum well-known prophetic juncture over the panorama of the Old Testament - certainly, it's a totally hinge in Ezekiel itself, summing up oracles of hope (chapters 34-37) and past, beyond the 'final convulsion of evil' in chapters 38-39, into chapters forty-48.

This piece of Scripture without a doubt reeks of Jesus Christ and him crucified for our unification.

The New Covenant is ushered in - celebration to the demise and elevating of Jesus to be on the proper hand of the Father cataclysmically; it throws its echo a long way back into the Centuries of the Prophets, or even beforehand, and of path, into the indefinite future.

God with Us - Emmanuel

We recognize this through Isaiah 7:14, that Jesus is prophesied, coming to earth, to stay with us. He turns into the heavenly Substitute - him for our sin.

What is taking place right here in Ezekiel is the heralding of the time forward some six centuries - catapulted past the uncharacteristically-God-quiet Intertestamental duration.

God is promising right here to be with us - firstly inside the Person of Jesus, and then ultimately and ultimately thru the present of the Holy Spirit which God despatched on receipt of Jesus inside the heavens. This speaks of Sanctuary.

Sanctuary

God's sanctuary is with us, in us, amongst us; forever. It is for the duration of the earth, dividing never-so indiscriminately, locating its way through our beings and into all of our believing occasions.

The whole idea of Sanctuary is compelling; no longer to certainly a physical place - but it is a Spiritual vicinity wherein God makes his Presence and Rest to be had inside us.

This idea draws us in cohesion. As God is One so are we to be one - the body of Christ pulling together - past the constrains of racial and moral challenge. Sanctuary and Unity:  standards held collectively as one in God.

Two Sticks and Unification

The imagery of Ezekiel's  sticks is simply pointing us to the unification of the then disparate Southern and Northern kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

The New International Version heads Ezekiel 37:15ff with the identify, One Nation Under One King. This is the positive prophesy of Jesus' coming - bringing collectively what is going to never again be separated.

And for us...

Whenever we meet another individual - without regard for colour, creed, ethnicity, background or something else - through distinctive feature that they are kids of God like we're - he's our brother and she is our sister! No ifs, no buts. Love and charm is to pervade the gap among us.

For people who already name Christ their Saviour: UNITY and holiness in God's Name - it's a simple fee to be labored out in us all as in line with Paul's attraction in 1 Corinthians 1:10: