YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN

 In the last episode, the seed was planted in the Garden of God and now the harvest is ready. 

BORN AGAIN 

Isaiah saw a two-phase rebirth process, just as birth is of two parts: conception and deliverance with a period in between. Nobody is both conceived and born in the same day and it is likely that nobody is conceived of the Spirit and born of the flesh simultaneously.

Conception, just like in the birth process, is the seed planted. 

Jesus, using the parable of the Sower of the seed used several examples where the seed failed to grow. It took time for some seed to spring up as they were trodden to the ground. The good seed also “sprang up” but not instantaneously; it took time to spring through the ground to reveal itself as potential fruit (Luke 8:8), the fruit once through the ground, had to grow.

“Sprang” in the Greek is phyo, indicating a swelling. In human beings the “swelling” is nine months before the “seed” springs forth from the ground.

Springing forth indicates time. Hence, conception is immediate but born again is time dependent. Any one of the spiritual “abortions” can terminate the unborn spiritual baby.

Unfortunately, the womb of those spiritually conceived is not the ground but the world. There are all sorts of rocky ground and thorns that can abort the newly conceived babe in Christ. The most fatal is the “fiery darts” of the wicked (Ephes 6:16).

Once conceived, the crop must grow to maturity.

Matthew added some “fiery darts” set on destroying the fetal Christian: others (Mat 10:21). Jesus said, “You shall be hated of all men for My name's sake: but he that endures to the end shall be saved” (Mat 10:22). When is the “end”? For some, death is the end since the dead can never be persuaded. For others, the rapture will be “the end” of their time; “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor 15:52).

Salvation is when those dead in Christ — dead Christians — shall be raised from the dead and their bodies and souls assembled, albeit with new and improved glorious bodies that are incorruptible to last for eternity.

Perhaps Ezekiel was beating witness of that when he wrote this:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezek 11:19-20) 

The ”new Spirit” is conception and taking away the stony heart is from the parable of the Sower. God will give those with a new Spirit a heart of flesh.

The new Spirit is followed by a long walk, according to Ezekiel, on the road to death. Wherein the Spirit is saved until the trumpet sounds. How to endure to the end? “You shall keep My (God’s) judgments and do them” ostensibly all your remaining days on Earth.

The Jews always thought that the land of their father’s was Israel. The “Real Estate” that God had given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David was the heavenly kingdom of Abraham. The Book of Jasher indicates that while Abraham resided in Canaan, his real was in Paradise. That is the true land of milk and honey.  called that “land” “The Bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16).

Paradise in heaven is the “land” that God gave to our fathers. When the souls of the dead are reunited with God’s version of “people improvement,” that time is the rapture when those dead in Christ will be taken away to God’s land and saved by the Living Waters from the bosom of Jesus.

Hence, the seed of rebirth is planted now (2 Cor 6:2); and it either withers or grows on Earth. The crop is either mulched or harvested at the sound of the trumpet when Jesus comes for it.

Ezekiel saw the harvest sometime in the future, perhaps at the rapture of the crop when the dry bones are revived, and the soul returns from Paradise.

Jesus as “The Word” asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ezek 37:3) from the perspective of the valley of dry bones.

The Lord God would speak The Word unto these bones; “Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live” (Ezek 37:5).  

  Then said He unto me, "Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

  So, I (Ezekiel) prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

  Then He said unto me, “’Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.’”

  Therefore prophesy and say unto them, “Thus says the Lord God; ‘Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord” (Ezek 37:10-14) 

This first rapture occurred when Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

The “valley of the dead bones” was beneath Calvary. God created the “valley” when the rocks quaked. Then look what appeared?

The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after His (Jesus’s) Resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with Him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Mat 27:52-54)

The ”saints” were those patriarchs that were already dead in Christ — “The Word of God.” Perhaps Ezekiel was one of the saints that was long dead, and that he too put on new flesh at the Resurrection of Jesus, appearing to many.

God promised the dry bones that they would live again. He told Ezekiel those things.

Those dead bones were those from long before who knew that Jesus was Lord, just as Ezekiel foresaw.

I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So, I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone, and when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. (Ezek 37:6-8) 

Israel saw that just as God revealed to Ezekiel; they all saw the dead bones arise from the ground and gain flesh. The bones came together in order, sinews and the flesh came onto those long dry bones, and then skin covered them from God above. The lived but there was no breath in them. Then next God breathed life unto them (Ezek 37:9).

Ezkiel saw that from the perspective of the future. He saw the saints in Christ and them resurrected. That proved to those who saw and heard the noise of that, that Jesus is who He said He is — God in the flesh of a man!

Jesus propitiated His blood so that the dead saints could live again (Rom 3:25). Because the dead were re-assembled that would prove that Jesus is God, overcoming death and Hades.

Note that the first resurrection included Jesus who would wait many days to be removed from the world and saved from death.

Jesus was planted in the ground, in the tomb, and it took parts of three days to sprout. It took forty days for Jesus to ascend for after the Resurrection, He had to overcome the world, and that He did in many ways too numerous to mention herein.

For forty-days, the dead in Christ would walk with Jesus as they appeared to many. Where are they now? In Paradise. Unknown is when they left the world to be in the Bosom of Jesus, but they did. It makes sense that they might have ascended with Jesus, and Ezekiel pointed to that when he wrote the words of God, “I shall place you in your own land.” He surely took those that He raptured to Paradise with Him.

Ezekiel’s vision and the first Resurrection were signs for both the ancient Israelites and for us. If dry bones and the fresh bones from Jesus could be made new again, so can ours. That Jesus put new flesh on dry bones indicates that those bones were glorified. Perhaps among those saints was Adam… hence the “Place of Adam’s Skull” as I wrote in my book, The Skull of Adam. It makes sense that Ezekiel’s bones scattered wherever were brought together by the hand of God.

The rapture is the time of the “salvation of souls” when they are again joined with the flesh and readied to travel to the “land” of God in Heaven.

(God) Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. (1 Pet 1:8-10)

The inquiring prophets there; that was Ezekiel for one. He inquired and God revealed to him the salvation of souls. Those dry bones were safe but would not be made whole again (saved) until millennia later.

"Valley of the Dry Bones" (Ed Jarret)