Unlike later centuries of believers, they did not think of heaven in terms of some far-off place in outer space. They believed that this very world in the sky above and the earth below would be renewed.
No longer would the ground be cursed because of humankind's sin. The verdant life of the original Garden of Eden would be restored.
The saints would find all they needed in that new world to live a life of health and happiness. All the blights of this world -- drought, storms, famine, plague, war and even death itself -- will be taken away.
In its place would be God's good world as it was intended to be in the beginning.
Seen in these terms, Ezekiel's prophesy of the restoration of the Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple makes perfectly good sense. It also contains a subtle commentary on the "geography" of faith.
Ezekiel saw the river of living water flowing from under the new temple eastward over the mountains and into the desert! Rivers ordinarily flow north and south in Palestine, not certainly over this rugged territory and parched land.
But that's the point of the prophecy. Faith has the power to flow over the roughest land. Faith has the power to revitalize the driest soil. Faith doesn't carry us over the easy routes.
Common sense and the rational thought can handle those problems. But when life comes up against a mountain range and a trackless desert, faith alone will carry us through.
