THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Ezekiel: Effective Ministry To The Spiritually Rebellious

Part LXVIII: The Millennial Kingdom Offerings: Fellowship With God In The Temple

(Ezekiel 46:19-24)

I. Introduction

A. Ezekiel chapters 40-48 predict God's restoration of Israel following His many prophecies of judgment on the nation for sin, and Ezekiel 44:1-46:24 predicts the temple ministers and ministries in the Millennial Kingdom.

B. This section reveals God's great holiness in the realm of the temple ministries to the Hebrew people of Ezekiel's day in sharp contrast to the way they had profaned and desecrated the temple ministries in Jerusalem.

C. We thus view Ezekiel 46:19-24 on fellowship with God in the future Millennial Kingdom temple (as follows):

II. The Millennial Kingdom Offerings: Fellowship With God In The Temple, Ezekiel 46:19-24.

A. In Ezekiel 8, God took Ezekiel in a trance from Babylon to the Jerusalem temple and showed him various ways Judah's people were worshiping false gods there. Ezekiel saw the pornographic image of the goddess Asherah in the temple that some worshiped (Ezekiel 8:3-4; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Ezekiel 8:3), he saw 70 elders worshiping abominable images of animals in a secret chamber (Ezekiel 8:4-11), he witnessed women weeping for the false god Tammuz at the northern gate (Ezekiel 8:12-14) while 25 men with their backs to the Lord in His temple were worshiping the rising sun in the east (Ezekiel 8:15-16).

B. However, in sharp contrast to this vile idolatry in Ezekiel's day, the people of God will truly fellowship with the Lord in the Millennial Kingdom temple (as follows), Ezekiel 46:19-24:

1. Some of the offerings the people were to offer involved the practice of fellowshiping with God, signified by some of the offering being burned on the altar to the Lord where some of it was eaten by the worshiper.

2. Of necessity, then, the worshipers needed to have the animal sacrifices cooked in a kitchen for them to be edible, what required kitchens to be provided for preparing this food.

3. In addition, some of the offerings the priests could eat had to be eaten separate from the people as those offerings were holy and did not involve the peoples' part where other offerings were to be eaten by the common people instead of the priests.

4. To accommodate all these needs, God directed that there be kitchens set aside in the priest's quarters for the priestly communal sacrifices and other kitchens set aside for the people to have to prepare their communal offerings of fellowship with the Lord. Ezekiel 46:19-24 describes these kitchens (as follows):

a. The Preincarnate Christ Who was guiding Ezekiel around the temple (Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Ezekiel 40:3) led him to the kitchens of the priests at the west end of the temple complex by doors that opened only to the priests, Ezekiel 46:19; B. K. C., O. T., p. 1303, 1313. These kitchens would be used for boiling the trespass and the sin offerings and baking the grain offerings that the priests not bring them out into the outer court where they would unbiblically communicate holiness to the people, Ezekiel 46:20 ESV.

b. The Preincarnate Christ then brought Ezekiel out into the outer court of the temple where the common people would congregate and led him around to the four corners of the temple, Ezekiel 46:21a. There in the corner of each court that would be accessible for the people was another court, smaller courts in which inside around each of the four courts was a row of masonry with hearths made at the bottom of the rows all around, Ezekiel 46:21b-23 ESV. In these courts at the corners of the outer court were the kitchens where those who minister at the temple would boil the sacrifices for the people to eat, Ezekiel 46:24.

c. Strikingly, the priests would have access to practical fellowship with the Lord in their priestly quarters at the west side of the temple, where the people could feasibly congregate at the four corners of the temple to fellowship with the Lord in eating of their respective fellowship offerings.

d. Thus, instead of worshiping pornographic or false images, instead of worshiping animal deities in some covert room of the temple complex, instead of turning one's back to the Lord in His temple to worship the sun in the east, God's people would openly fellowship with the Lord in the place He provided for them in His temple, and they would do so in righteousness and holiness.

Lesson: In the Millennial Temple, the people of God will worship and fellowship with the Lord in the places He has assigned them, and they will fellowship with Him in righteousness and holiness.

Application: (1) May we worship the Lord in righteousness and holiness today. (2) When we meet in the local church, may we fellowship with Christ and not with some false idol we might be tempted to worship in His place.