Ezekiel 36:11 says, And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. God then said that He was going to bless them with people and animals and that they would be even better off than before materially. I don’t believe that we can take this promise to Israel then and say that if we put our faith in God that He is going to make us materially rich, but we will be spiritually better off than we were before. God also said that when He caused this to happen that the people of Israel would know that He is God. We cannot be a Christian without knowing that God is the only God and that He provides the only way to salvation.
Verse twelve adds, Yea, I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave them of men. God said that He was going to cause the people of Israel to walk in their own land once more. They had been scattered throughout the world, but He was going to assemble them in the promised land once more. As followers of Christ, we are scattered throughout the world today, but one day, God is going to gather us all together in our heavenly home. God also said that when this happened that His people would no longer be bereaved because of their status in the world, and as Christians, when God calls us home to glory, we will no longer be bereaved.
Verse thirteen states, Thus saith the Lord God; Because they say unto you, Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy nations: God said that the land of Israel devoured or destroyed people while it lay desolate. This was because the people of Israel had been defeated or devoured by other nations instead of being a land that protected them. In effect, this was a judgment on God Who had given them the land but seemingly hadn’t protected the people of Israel. Of course, they failed to understand that it wasn't the land or God Who had caused the defeat of the Israelites but their own sin that had. If we are spiritually defeated today, we cannot blame it on the place we live and we especially cannot blame it on God. It will always be our personal sin that causes us to be defeated spiritually.
Verse fourteen adds, Therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord God. God said that since other people claimed that Israel had devoured other nations that this would no longer happen. Israel was to prosper once more in peace and not in war. I believe that God still expects us as followers of Christ to reach out to the world with His message of forgiveness in peace and not to reach out to them with the destruction of war.
Verse fifteen continues, Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God. God said that He was going to cause the people of Israel to no longer bear the shame or reproach of the heathen because of their having caused them to fall. We as Christians and as a nation called a Christian nation are not called to destroy those who don’t believe in God but to reach out to them with the love of God and call on them to repent and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. If we destroy them when they are unsaved, we have helped send them away to everlasting destruction.
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