All of the land's going to mourn

Psalm 2 begins, [1] Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

[2] The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

[3] Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

"What is the vain imagination the Gentiles in Israel have? 'The kings of the earth (Gentiles) and the rulers (Israel) take counsel together.

"They're saying, 'Let's take the truth God gives us that binds us and let's just throw it away,' " explains Richard Jordan.

"So, when you come to Hosea 4, He says by stealing, lying, killing, committing adultery they break out-- that is, they're seeking to break the cords God gave them in the covenant.

[1] Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
[2] By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
[3] Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

"They're going out acting like a bunch of Gentiles, rebelling against God and 'blood toucheth blood.' That's an interesting expression. You shed blood here, and over there, and it runs together. There's so much blood that it's completely polluted the whole land. It's everywhere.

"You'll see these minor prophets do this constantly, picking up the imagery of the major prophets and applying this stuff in specific applications to what's going on in Israel.

"Every time I read Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 I think, 'It's a shame that we always just quote the latter part of these chapters because the first halves of the chapters are critical to understanding.'

Ezekiel 36 begins:

[1] Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD:
[2] Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:
[3] Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:
[4] Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about;

"God says, 'Zeke, go out and talk to the land.' It's, 'Hey mountain, here what I got to say. Hey tree, here what I got to say.'

"The reason for that is that land is important to God. He calls it holy land. It's been set apart for a purpose He created it for.

"When He takes Israel and puts her back in the land and marries her to the land and makes it Beulah Land, it isn't just the people who are important to God; it's the land that's important to Him.

"That's why you know there's going to be a literal, physical, visible, earthly restoration of a literal, visible, earthly people. Because those two things are critically important to Him.

"Now, the first 15 verses, He talks to the land and tells the land that, 'You guys have been mistreated and the people who mistreated you, I'm going to take them out.'

Ezekiel 36: [16] Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

[17] Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman.
[18] Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it:
[19] And I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.
[20] And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.

"We think about words like 'profane' and 'cursing' in the context of gutter talk, but in the Bible those words have a spiritual meaning that's not just talking about animal behavior being applied to humans; it's talking about giving allegiance to false religious systems that produce that kind of activity, but the underlying issue is rejection of God's truth.

"By the way, that's why Jesus told His apostles that when you pray say, 'Our Father which art in heaven, hallow it be thy name.' When He says hallow, He means 'sanctify your name.'

"In verses 17 and 18, He's going to treat the nation Israel as the uncleanness of a removed woman. That goes back to Leviticus 13 when a woman has an issue of blood she's to be removed out of the congregation for a period of time before she can come back in.

"He says, 'That's what's happened to the land; the nation Israel has polluted the land with their blood.' That's why in Hosea 4 where it talks about blood passing blood . . . What He's talking about is the blood shed in worshipping these idols has completely consumed the land. The total rejection of God's Word and the total overtake of the nation by the lie program.

Again Hosea 4:3 says, [3] Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

"Ezekiel talked to the land and you know what lives in the land? Trees, fish, fowl, beasts of the field. All of them are affected. The land's going to mourn.

"If you go to Leviticus 26, what you discover is He's going to withhold rain. The whole land, everything in the land, whether it's the forest and the trees, or it's the beasts of the field, all those things are affected. 

"Watch this happen at the end of Joel 1:

[16] Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
[17] The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.
[18] How do the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
[19] O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field.
[20] The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

(new article tomorrow)