One Hour. One Book: Ezekiel

Ezekiel is actually a an a an incredible Prophet that has his naming strengthened by God hazak is to become strong like and Ezekiel is God is my strength or God strengthens me or God um God has added strength to [Music] me the book itself can be very difficult in terms of its own um its own contents and so I my experience is whenever anybody wants to start a weird theology they say it comes from Ezekiel because nobody actually knows what's in there Ezekiel had a very unique message I want to do four things in this

sort of introductory lecture and one of them is just a quick overview of the Captivity and its profits the second thing is um a quick overview of Ezekiel and his message and the third one is a note about how a priest became a prophet because Ezekiel was a priest and God moved him from being a priest to being a prophet those are two very different um skill sets and very different approaches to God and so it's going to be important that you understand that and then the last one is I want to look at the

opening of the book and the profound vision of God's glory which I think uh the book begins with and it is uh it's an incredible book in that respect I'm going to use this I'm going to use essentially whether you call it three or four it doesn't make any difference to me okay but I'm going to call this essentially um the chapters 1 to three that have to do with the Call of Ezekiel and inside that call um there's going to be a very important Vision there are four Visions in the book and we're going

to see those four Visions each of them are turning points in his life and they're incredible vision of God the most specific vision of God in the Bible is in Ezekiel 1 through3 and there's a reason he's going to get one of the worst jobs in the Bible you have to know God deeply to serve him with the grit he's going to have to serve him with because his call am I allowed to say his Call's really crummy it's a really crummy call okay he's going to get called to do stuff that nobody would volunteer

for I mean you know he's going to be lying around on one side then lying around on the other side then he's supposed to cook his meal on poop and I mean he's got the the stuff he's called to do is pretty profound pretty gritty um he's not he's not your normal guy okay and the weird part is um partway through this his wife's got to be saying are you sure God told you I mean it's really bad so I want you to see see how deep the call of the Prophet goes now in 4-32

there's a there's a kind of you know usually we have the condemnation section and then usually after the condemnation what do we have we have a constellation and you can do that with this book but there's actually something more specific and by the way this would be 4 to 32 and this would be 33 to 48 now inside the condemnation section though there are two different things that go on in 4 to 24 there is he's dealing specifically with God's people specifically with the Jews and the internal Jewish workings inside Babylon during the Exile and

that is from chapters 4 to to um 24 and that really takes place over a 5year period Then after that in 25-32 he's dealing outside of that frame more into the Nations and when he's dealing with the Nations he's dealing in a 2-year period so this is all together seven years of prophecies that are condemnation prophecies now when I call them condemnation prophecies don't mean it doesn't mean everything he says is in a bad mood it does mean that that's the general frame of it okay so let's that's the general look at it but of

course the most important line here notice that 24 has a line right there 24 will be that incredible moment in his life that that prediction of the prophet's loss and that's the prediction of his death of his wife's death and that's in chapter 24 it's actually in chapter 24: 15 to1 17 so I'll I'll put that in there but this is the turning point of the book so here's what I want you to see about this book yes it's a prophet's book yes it's a prophetic um um Snippets of a prophet and various prophecies but

it's more than that it's also biographical it's how I got called what God did in my marriage and then how that played out okay it's actually his story interwoven with the Prophecies of God to a people so in a way it's kind of like life lessons that he got through it I want you to see it both in um in both terms prophecy and biography you know um I want you to be able to see that there was Clarity in Ezekiel amid some real static one of the points that Ezekiel makes in terms of his

call and his writing and and the uniqueness of it is that it's aimed at people when other prophets were saying false things about God so what I want you to see is he is um probably about oh in the early 90s there was a a movie that came out called Minority Report the idea was that um one guy came out with a report that was different than everybody else's it had to do with the future in technology but Ezekiel was giving a Minority Report what does that mean means four out of five prophets surveyed said

the opposite of what Ezekiel said they were all saying one thing Ezekiel was called to say the opposite why because most of them were wrong most of them weren't Walking with God they were telling people that they wanted to hear so Ezekiel at a very dark time is a Minority Report Prophet let me set this up maybe with a story that will help a girl said um my mother and I returned to my parents house late one evening to find my father and my college age brother and my 10-year-old sister fast asleep my mother had

forgotten her house keys so we knock knocked loudly at the front door and then the side doors and then went around and tapped on the windows I picked up a little Pebble and was clicking at the W window and I couldn't get anybody to wake up so we went outside we hit the horn on the car but uh the neighbors light went on and we knew we were bothering the neighborhood and nobody was getting up so after a while we decided to go down to the local supermarket and out inside the supermarket there was a

u a phone so we went over the phone and we called my brother's extension of his phone in the house he woke up we said look we've been trying to get in the house nobody's awake can you open the front door my brother went down opened the front door so we got in the house and we tiptoed up into the house I went to bed my mom said she went quietly into a room and there she saw her husband in front of the TV sound asleep in in his um easy chair she walked over very

quietly she clicked off the TV and what did he say I was watching that now here's the thing don't turn that off I'm watching it the crazy part about that is Dad was sound asleep as the world was rushing on in a very real way um Ezekiel makes the argument that trouble is coming even though most people are asleep and don't see it that it things are about to happen and I believe there's a Biblical case for me to conclude that there's a lot of that in the church right now that a lot of people

are saying it's going to be fine it's going to be fine when real trouble is coming if you're actually paying attention to the erosion not only of morality but also of a Biblical conscience this week you may have seen the one of the companies uh in Norway and in Sweden are now embedding chips in the arms of their um their employees so that they can walk through security with a chip that's underneath their skin and of course um those people who have some kind of biblical conscience get worried and so I got a bunch of

emails saying is this the mark of the beast and what I said was everything's going to be reasonable when it comes it's all going to be tried and tested technology no I don't think that company just started the mark of the beast I what I think happened is everybody just in a cult that is quickly distancing itself from the specifics of the Bible and the pr precise nature of Prophecy alongside of that as they diss the Bible and forget about it fewer people will even care then they're going to do whatever technology makes sense and

everybody's going to agree when people started using plastic cards Christians were upset you have no idea we have a kiosk out there where you can give on uh online through your credit card but that is a step a Leap Forward you have no idea what the Brethren did when credit cards came out they were of the devil now are they probably but so is everything else in the world I mean come on the fact of the matter is they're going to quickly take us into a place where buying and selling is done without cash for

those of you who don't know cash is the stuff that the government used to print before we all had plastic cards then next it'll be you know we can just kind of walk up to our thing and go like that to our with our phone and it will automatically move numbers from your account to their account there is no money that actually exists for most of this all that to say this that things are changing and it's not that I think ah Panic you're not going to stop it you're not going to turn back the

you know the Antichrist will be thwarted today because Abby will stand up and say no to her chip okay now if you were to ask me should you get one put in your skin I'd say no why cuz it just gives me the willies okay why go even toward that stuff but the fact of the matter is it's going to be perfectly perfectly acceptable when the time comes and it's going to make sense and everybody's going to walk around going oh I get it and nobody's going to think the Bible because those guys are going

to be seen as intolerant bigots who are caught up in Superstition of some ancient set of moldy books that don't matter that's what's going to happen now I want you to see that the world is screaming for help and many Believers are snoring and like the dad they seem to be thinking they're paying attention but they're really not I want you to see that ezekiel's call and writing uniqueness was that he was dropped into a place where he had to say something that was different than everyone else who supposedly represented God why because Luke might

be in that situation in a year or two stuck in a Bible study where everybody's basically talking about something but it's not the Bible or sitting on a University campus where people are purporting to know Jesus and if Jesus were here he'd be tolerant of whatever we want because that's the Jesus of America and you'll be sitting there going did you ever actually read anything about Jesus I mean do you actually know anything from Jesus I want you to go back for a moment to the Captivity period I want you to see what that period

looked like now remember that the Captivity period has three starts and three ends 606 597 586 this will be Daniel this will be Ezekiel this will be everybody but the blind crippled and crazy and not everybody got taken but there were people that were left in Judea but uh after zedekiah's Sons were killed and they were CED off in the Babylon this will be the beginning the end also has three waves so counting 70 from this the the first wave going back will be about when 5 536 now 539 and you're going to see the

the um some people will make it 539 536 539 is when Cyrus decreed that they go back but they didn't go back until 536 which would be 70 years after that but that's not the only wave that goes back this is the wave that goes back with shesh Bazar and zerubabel and they go back and that'll be Ezra 1-6 after they get back they get started they're working on the temple and then they discover something about their Homeland what did they discover they discover that great grandma's Farm is right up the road and that technically

is their farm so what do they do they go in and they um open up the place and it's been vacant and the animals are scattered and the farm is all overgrown and the vines are all untended then they go in and they start sweeping out the place and they start dreaming a little bit and they start doing you know they start you know they call up the property brothers and they bring them in and then they do a renovation and then it's something nice and new okay what happens is by 5:20 you have a

time when God is saying wait a minute you are living in panel houses in great grandma's house all redone nice renovation by the way love the dishwasher and love the granite countertops but I'm living in a shack says the Lord and a Prophet by the name of Hagi will call out and say you need to get back on the stick here you're not really following me you're not now right in the middle of that period we know in the Captivity that you have basically two places you have Jerusalem you have Babylon and you have placements

of prophets that are in specific places so who's the Jerusalem Prophet for the duration of the um the good portion of the Captivity Jeremiah and his job is to see the people leaving and explain to them how to live outside the land he's also in Jeremiah 29:10 the one who writes down how long the Captivity will be who's reading him and discovers when they should be going back Daniel which means Jeremiah is much older than Daniel okay now Jeremiah is actually dying off and by the time of Ezekiel ezekiel's taken into captivity when he's very

young and he knows about the Prophecies of Jeremiah he also knows about the hot hits that were sung by the rhythm and blues section in Jerusalem called what Lamentations the laments of of Jerusalem and those are five songs or poems that became they were one of them is even acrostic done they're done in ways that are catchy and you can remember them okay meanwhile that first group that went to Babylon included Daniel and Daniel is an older Statesman who becomes essentially like a prime minister so that by the time Ezekiel is taken Daniel's reputation and

Shadrach mhach and bedo are all known people to the Jews coming in so the conditions for Ezekiel are not bad he's not parked in the middle of a terrible place he's taken to a university much like Daniel and his three friends were but he's taken to universities spread out all over the 60 m circumference of Babylon he's on a place called along the kabar canal or kabar river and it's a place that you will now know because it's uh there's a city called this T of Eve and Ezekiel 3 gives the name Tel Aviv which

is now the largest city or second largest city uh used to be the largest city Jerusalem's now outstripped Tel Aviv but Tel Aviv a very large city in the Mediterranean in Israel when you land the first night you go to a a Hotel in Tel Aviv it's not the one from Ezekiel cuz that's over in Babylon but the name comes from an ancient uh name tell is the word for archaeological mounder ruin Aviv is the word for spring so it's old ruined Springtime it's old and new mixed together and so it's kind of a nice

poetic idea probably Tel Aviv was the name that the Jews gave it so in the Captivity expect Daniel and Ezekiel to be over here the important thing for us is this period of time um you're going to learn more about the return and and the waves of return I've only begun that story just to sort of cap off the end of this but you're going to learn more about that with um with Ben and with uh David while I'm gone here's what's important to me as we look at ezekiel's career Ezekiel is a priest what's

the operative year of his life that should make a difference in his life how old does he need to be W for things to really change for him 30 years of age so watch when he turns 30 in the book because that's when he should engage as a priest and that will be important of Jesus because he he's about 30 years of age that means he engages it's the age of an Engaged priest which he wouldn't have been a priest except for in Hebrews you know that he was so all that to say this the

Captivity period is a unique period in the Bible it's a unique period because there are some songs that are reflective of it can anybody think of a Psalm that reflects the Captivity period now back in Jerusalem Jeremiah's adding to the whole knowledge of the prophecies ezekiel's a younger contemporary to Jeremiah and he'd been preaching um actually by the time Ezekiel is born Jeremiah's already been preaching 5 years so he's the Next Generation he's the young kid who's growing up ezekiel's born probably I'd put it on the front page of Ezekiel he's born probably in about

622 BC if in Ezekiel 1:1 he turned 30 and 597 I'm going backwards and doing 597 plus 30 and that's how I'm getting this uh I'm thinking around 622 is he is born and Jeremiah's prophecies are recorded over a 46e period while ezekiel's prophecies cover a 22-year period And so let's put it this way 593 to 571 is probably the period of time that Ezekiel is actually covering in his prophecies so this will be Prophecies of Ezekiel or Prophecies of Zeke and they will be from between 593 and 571 essentially if Jeremiah and by 581

Jeremiah his last prophecies are about 581 you'll find that ezekiel's are 571 in other words they're contemporaries for the last part of this will be Jeremiah's life and this will be Zeke okay so Ezekiel actually overlaps him but only the last part Jeremiah is already an old guy by the time Ezekiel starts his work and Jeremiah hangs on forever he's kind of whiny but he doesn't go away it's kind of like country music um okay now Ezekiel will offer this Minority Report he will hold reverence as a higher value than acceptance and that's one of

the things I think you should write on the cover of the book he holds reverence higher than acceptance Ezekiel is a prophet seized with a vision of the glory of God and because he reveres God Hees doesn't care if other people accept him reverence above acceptance that's that's a theme he will use the term Sovereign Lord the term Sovereign Lord 400 times 400 times now that's if you translate in the new new international version but essentially he uses the term Sovereign Lord all the time for God in a way it's reflective of the earlier Ministry

of Daniel how does this reflect something that also would be akin to what Daniel did what was Daniel's title for God the most high God El Elon this one is The Sovereign God the reigning God Sovereign just means reigning it means king K God and so you you see that Daniel laid the footprint and Ezekiel picked up the whole idea now let's talk about who Ezekiel is if you look in the beginning of the book you'll find he is part of the family of zok uh the Zite family and in the period of the Kings

Zed is a priest he comes from the time of David but Zed eventually declines I want you to see that his the word in the New Testament for the family or the line of thinking of zedak is saddy it actually comes from the same root zedek so he is in fact the son of a fellow by the name of bti BU U zi rabbi tradition identifies booty as Jeremiah um but we're not really at all sure that that's what it means we do know that Bootsie means my contempt and it seems like it's a nickname

not a name cuz who would call their child my contempt I mean you know contemptuous one I I so it looks like it's a nickname is he related to Jeremiah some writers think so many do not you could write the paper submit it to the Society of biblical literature and make yourself famous I have no idea what I know is that he's carried off to Babylon 11 years before the ruin of the temple so when is the temple destroyed Temple destroyed in 586 11 years before that he is taken off taken away so in 597

he is carded away that means when he gets to Babylon when he left there was still an operating temple in Jerusalem it's true the Babylonians were pretty much running everything and the jerusalemites were paying tribute to Babylon but there was still an operating Temple Jeremiah was prophesying telling him that the temple was going to be destroyed most people were walking around go on Jeremiah is an old fuddy duddy he doesn't know what he's talking about the Temple's not going to be destroyed we're going to go off to Babylon we're going to train the Babylonians in

how to know God the world is going to be swept with a vision of God we're going to come back and there's and there's going to be a great Messianic Kingdom that was the prophecy line of a lot of people Ezekiel comes out having remembered the operation of the temple if you're born a priest then your whole life is scheduled around I want to become trained to do the sacrifices trained to be part of a Priestly work and then when I'm 30 I'm going to start my job but his life is interrupted and so he's

carted off into Babylon it's interesting because Ezekiel was like prophets in some ways Ezekiel evidently knew Daniel now I would make a few notes in the beginning of Ezekiel because you are not going to be back in this book for much of your Christian Life there's hardly anybody who opens this book so you're not going to remember it 20 years from now when you dust off Ezekiel again and get back here by the way it's a fabulous book it's a great book with a great message but like Leviticus you got to get into it to

understand what it is okay so a couple notes one of them is Ezekiel evidently knew Daniel um he mentioned Daniel three times in his book I'm to give you the three times he mentioned okay in Ezekiel 14 it's actually Ezekiel 1414 and Ezekiel 14:20 those are two of them twice he mentions them in Ezekiel 14 Ezekiel 14:14 Ezekiel 14:20 and the third time Ezekiel 283 so three times Daniel is mentioned obviously Zeke knows Dan and Dan is a high-placed official and Zeke is not and Dan is an much older stately man with a great reputation

and Zeke is a young kid being brought in years after him Daniel was was um obviously there since his youth H when he got there about age 15 in 606 and so by the time it's 597 let's do the math a little bit if Daniel's carded away and he's about age 15 by 597 what is he he so Daniel is 24 now you're going to go 24 that means he's Young no that means half his life is over in the biblical economy he's a middle-aged man these are people the reason they started having babies at

13 and 14 is they were dead by 42 okay so you have to think in a different lifespan so he's now of course he lives to be in his 80s but he lives twice as long as most people he's as old as dirt the point is that he's 24 by the time Ezekiel is taken into captivity Ezekiel is a younger contemporary now Jeremiah is also a contemporary but he's in that different location and what is probably the most important part of the book of Jeremiah as it regards Ezekiel I want you to look for a

moment hold your finger in the front of Ezekiel and go to Jeremiah 29 and I want you to see the flavor of Jeremiah 29 cuz in Jeremiah 29 you see a little bit of part of the it's it's part of a condemnation section but it's especially a message to the Exiles and I know that because at the beginning at the top of Jeremiah 29 in your Bible it says message to the Exiles okay but but here's what it is okay take a look at Jeremiah 29 now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah

the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the Elders of the Exile the priests the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into into Exile from Jerusalem to Babylon so you understand what this scroll is you're looking now at I take you back now to an ancient scroll that as we open it the first part says from Jeremiah to all the Jews in Babylon so he'll be in Jerusalem and he's writing to the Exiles who are in Babylon what's their problem their problem is they've gone through the if you two don't knock

it off I'll spank you to I spanked your brother to now you're both spanked how do we live in a foreign land everything we have from the law tells us how to live in the land under our own Kings how do we now live under a foreign King in a pagan environment in a place we weren't even supposed to be the entire Exile the way Randy reads it in the white spaces is life in Plan B it's when you're growing up in a place you don't belong it's not natural to you the whole thing is

messed up all of a sudden you're looking around and and this is the person who comes in here who gets saved who says I'm on my third marriage and this child is from my first marriage and this child's from my second marriage and Pastor Randy what's the right thing to do about and I say stop right was three marriages ago now we're just trying to do lesser of two evils okay we don't even have right and wrong this is life in Plan B he's writing to people who are living in a place they weren't supposed

to be so what do you do well you have a couple options as a Christian one of the things you could do is say you're in the wrong place because of your sin you're rotten thing okay because that's what some Christians do to people who are down anybody know a Christian like that you've met one okay now what would be a better thing to do a better thing to do would be to express God's how do you deal with it right now oh by the way there's other Christians that will go don't worry it's all

going to be okay you know Christians like that too right you want whatever they've been having for breakfast the point is that the point is that mushrooms won't get you through it you got to know what to do today so let's get to verse two this was after king yonah and the Queen Mother the court officials the princes of Judah and Jerusalem the Craftsman and the Smiths had departed from Jerusalem see I made it into the Bible here the Smiths had departed from Jerusalem but I think he had in mind the actual workers and Artisans

so this is after Jerusalem got emptied out this is you might write next to it 2 Kings 24 it's the period of 2 Kings 24 and it's after they get emptied out and you might ask yourself hm how did he get the letter to them well I'm glad you asked verse three the letter was sent by the hand of el Elisa the son of shafan and garia the son of hilia whom zedekiah king of Judah sent to B to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon saying thus says the Lord of hosts the god of Israel

to all the Exiles whom I have sent into Exile from Jerusalem to Babylon okay so Jeremiah establishes who it's from and who it's to he says build houses and live in them plant Gardens and eat their produce take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters take wives for your sons and give your daughters to your husbands that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not increase seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into Exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare

you will have welfare this is a huge Earth shattering change in scripture Katie take lives from their people no the interesting thing is when you start reading it right away you go what do you mean marry Babylonians none of them would have ever thought that what they were saying is do we stop marrying among our people you have hundreds of thousands of Jews there should we marry should we continue what do we do we just go and starve do we just stand there and say we refuse to eat we refuse to drink if it's not

our homeland we will just die do we bear our necks and say Slaughter us all and Jeremiah says thus says the Lord have a wedding get your kids married continue to have children continue to be a people in a foreign land they have never heard this in the Bible this is new to the Bible as far as they knew they walked out in Chains and assumed that they were heading to their death as far as they were concerned there was no place for a Jew but Judah and the whole game just changed right here but

here's what I find interesting it's verse seven seek the welfare of the king who took you into captivity of the City where you're now living pray for them I want you to turn what has always been about You outward I'm now putting you in the world in Plan B and I want you to pray for the people who put you there why because I use them to put you there I want you to to do that for thus says the Lord of hosts verse 8 the god of Israel do not let your prophets who are

in your midst and your divers deceive you do not listen to the dreams which they dream for they prophesy falsely to you in my name I have not sent them declares the Lord now here's the part that Daniel's reading much later for thus says the Lord when 70 years have been completed for Babylon I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you and bring you back to this place for I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans for your welfare and not for Calamity to give you a future

and a hope how many of you have heard heard verse 11 it's one of the only verses in Jeremiah people read but it's not by the way I have a wonderful plan for Andrea's life God does have a wonderful plan for Andrea's life but it's not in verse 11 of Jeremiah 29 because in Jeremiah 29:11 what that's about is I have a plan for the future of the Jewish people that's what it says but Randy I love that verse it means so much to me that's fine if you want to do that play Ouija board

with the Bible and make it say whatever you want I'm just telling you that's not what it says now is there application for the principle that God has a plan for your life yes see Ephesians 1 there are plenty of places we can get that but don't take it from places that don't say it why because when you get sloppy about how you interpret the Bible what you're telling the next generation of disciples is that it's okay to make up the script don't make up the script does God have a plan for your life yes

it is it for your destruction no all things work together for his good and that's your best good okay don't walk around with these verses and stick them on your wall like everything that is nice in the Bible I'll just apply to my life you're being unfair to the text don't change the text leave the text be the text I don't want to take away God's plan for your life and I hope you understand I'm not doing that I'm simply saying that people hijack whatever verse sounds good to them it's kind of the butterfly approach

oh I like that one oh that one's sweet oh I love that verse and they're just kind of Dancing Through the Bible taking what they want if if if verse 11 means God has a plan for your life then verses 8 and n mean don't go to church because they're all lying to you okay that you can't do it that way or you're going to end up in real trouble or at least I'm going to end up with an empty church the the interesting thing is verse 12 then you will call upon me you will

come and pray to me and I will listen to you you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart tell me verse 13 tell me who did that who did that Daniel he fell in front of God and he searched with him for all his heart and didn't eat why because that's what God told him to do at the end of the 70 years and the 70 years was coming up and that's why Daniel said I can't do this I've got God whatever it is oh God I won't

eat I won't bathe I won't do anything I'm just waiting for you guys why because that's all your heart when he said all your heart he meant all your heart so this is a wonderful link here's what I want you to see why is Jeremiah included in the text of scripture when most of the prophecies died with the people because a few of them linked Jeremiah to Ezekiel to Daniel to Nehemiah which pushes the story and tells you that what God Said here this guy understood what God Said there that guy understood what God Said

there that guy understood and that's how the program moved does that make sense God's word fits together beautifully I took you to Jeremiah 29 because I wanted you to see that Jeremiah kept a Ministry to the broken people of Jerusalem while Ezekiel on the other hand contended with the false prophets that Jeremiah wrote about and it's interesting to me that ezekiel's job I I'm not sure who had the worst job Jeremiah or Ezekiel I can just tell you that I wouldn't sign up for either I don't want to watch my country fall apart and sit

and write Lamentations and rhythm and blues songs I really don't want to do that by the way there are some preachers that I think are actually really good at that oh I feel bad we all should feel bad it's all getting worse gone to Hell in a hand basket there goes America that's just not the guy I want to be now the other side of it is Ezekiel on the other hand is getting up while everybody's saying just send me your $2 and I'll turn it into $500 cuz the Lord has told me if you

send me $2 I can send you back 500 and a hanky and a blessed marker you can get this Mark just send today what but wait if you act now send you even the Eraser to go along with and ezekiel's got to get up and go hogwash they're ripping you off that's his message okay I want you to feel it by the way when you get down to it the first half of ezekiel's collection was given to tear down false hope the first half of this is I need to tear down false hope why because

there was in the background a false hope that was being put upon the people of Israel in Exile that the Exile was about to be alleviated that they were about to be returned home and always look on the bright side of life it's all going to be wonderful tomorrow just wake up and tomorrow it will all be better and there was this hope and change kind of thing that was being pushed everywhere the interesting thing is that the second half of the book is identifying the truth and showing them from false hope what real hope

looked like so the second half of the book is going to deal with real hope and you know where where the turning point was the death of his wife it's as though God used Ezekiel to illustrate graphically in his own pain what God wanted to say now here's the question that we ask at the beginning of every prophetic work does God have the right to use my life if that means taking from me those things which are most important to me does he have the right this would be an interactive moment yes do most Believers

really believe he has the right no in fact we write theologies that say he wouldn't do that but he clear clearly does because in person after person after person of the Bible he does that now let's talk about what the book contains and then we'll go to a break after we get just a little bit a few notes in the front of the book that'll help you first of all there are four Visions in the book and you should know these four Visions they will be the most important part Vision number one is 1 to

three and that will be also the call it is his call vision and it's a very important Vision that will help you to understand exactly where God is going with the book but it's not the only Vision we're going to talk about in the book there's also another one if you go to uh for instance uh chapter 8 through 11 there's a second vision and it's in the middle of this 8 through1 and this is a vision that all relates to the glory of God Jerusalem the temple and the Jewish people all of his Visions

are glory of God Jerusalem Temple and and his people and so we're going to take a look at that Vision very closely there's another Vision that comes from this section in fact the last two visions both come from this section the other one is a very incredibly important one and this one will become uh from Jer uh from Ezekiel 37 Ezekiel 37 1-4 and the last one will be Ezekiel 40-48 chapters 40 to 48 and this will be about the restored Temple we're going to look at each of these in detail but these are the

four Visions you got number one number two number three number four there are four Visions in the book but that's not all the book contains it also contains four events in the book The Four events of the book include the call in 1 1:3 so we keep running into this event One Call 1 to three but that's not the only event the second event you already know about it's the prediction of the prophet's loss this is event two that's the prediction of the loss of his wife in chapter 24: 15 to1 17 then after he

gets through a a a morning period event number three actually takes place with sort of the renewal of his call A Renewed call this is in 33 1 to 20 and I just call it call two the sequel this is his second call so he's called 1 to three there's a a PR prediction of his loss he goes through that loss and he's recalled by God because he needs to be recalled and by the way you saw that in Revelation Ezekiel has the same pattern as Revelation in the sense that do you remember in in

Revelation 10 halfway through the book John basically got sick and the the angel said eat the book you're not done yet you got to keep going that's the Ezekiel 3 three moment in Revelation 10 it's the same story told in a very real way to reignite his passion I think it's important that we remember that even people that are dedicated to God and God is using can run out of steam you can get to the point where you're just plain sick of doing it and God has to re um reignite you the last one is

and it's it's kind of interesting right after this event number four happens also in the same chapter it is 33 beginning in verse 21 and it's after he's renewed his call his 21-33 it is all right now you're called again now let me explain what you're going to do for the rest of the of the prophecies so this is an explanation let me tell the story this way God called the man with a profound vision of himself but he called him to do something that was very hard stand up and preach against false hope and

he led him all the way to the point where he married this woman he loved his wife and God predicted by the way your wife is going to die and when she does she's going to get sick she's going to die and you are not to cry you are not allowed and he says this is the biggest thing in my life how can you do this to me and God just says quietly do exactly what I tell you to do but in the pattern of the first 24 chapters he's been told to do some pretty

weird things so he's already into that okay God whatever you're doing now he doesn't do it without holding back tears and sucking it up but he does it and a few chapters go by and God explains to him in his second call what that was about but it's not until later then he says here's what I want your life to be about and he turns him outward and he begins to console the people that's the way to tell the story in terms of his own relationship okay so what we've got then are a number of

different ways that God um opens up and explains himself to people all right so let's let's break it out and say it this way before you go to a break just think of it and conceptualize it in three boxes okay one: three is a call and then there's a series of waves of condemnation or promised judgments the the first five years of those are in chapters 4 to 24 and then he gets the prediction that his wife is going to die and he can't cry then another two years he all he does is collect prophecies

concerning the Nations around him and in those prophecies he shares them but honestly in in chapters 25 to 32 this guy H is absolutely brokenhearted by the way right in the middle of that section there's actually a scroll stuck in there that doesn't go with the rest of it it was a piece that actually comes from Egypt and was stuck right in the middle of it it's a prophecy to Egypt that's an addendum it's not that it's not his it's that somebody decided that in his papers was this also this prophecy so they stuck it

in there it doesn't seem to fit very well but to somebody's idea that was important is it important to God sure because it's there so you'll learn it you'll know it but you'll go boy that's kind of weird why is that there it's almost like right in the middle of his life story they went back 15 years and just dropped the oh by the way he there was this letter in his papers let's put it let's in include that it's like that now the third box then the third box will be from 25 to 32

will give you kind of the second part of the cons the condemnation and the third box will be a consolation it'll be from the recalling of him to the explanation of what he's supposed to do in 33 all the way through 48 and that consolation will be this is what God is going to do for the people is that okay is that clear enough I mean the chart may not be clear but is is the idea or flow clear good I I'm trying not to over complicate the book I want you to see one last

thing and then we'll take our break seven times in the book he he uses a phrase you should put the phrase in the beginning of the book so you know to look for it seven times in the book The Hand of the Lord was upon me the hand of the Lord was upon me let's put it this way seven moves of God are in the book The Hand of the Lord was upon me every time the hand of the Lord was upon him God moved him to do something do you remember seeing the hand of

the Lord being upon John and Revelation or Daniel in Daniel twice once in Revelation 1 and then in our last class in Daniel they were standing in front of a priest figure in Revelation 1 it's Jesus what happened to John when he saw Jesus what's that he fell down like as one dead Daniel says the same thing happened to him how did they get back up a hand was put upon them I want you to know that phrase the hand of the Lord was upon me because a move of God or a r strengthening or

recommitment of God is the hand of the Lord was upon me you're going to go through times in your life when you're going to know the hand of the Lord is upon you those are moments when God gives you I'm thinking of one I probably shared it with you at some point I was standing in the middle of a question and answer session in which somebody asked me a question and I promise you as God is my witness I had no idea I did not know the answer to their question I opened my Bible it

fell open to the answer to their question with the question in my handwriting and the answer and all the verses right there with lines on my page and I stood there and gave a brilliant oration of something I have no memory of ever writing the hand of the Lord was upon me in that moment God wanted to use me to say something and I knew it and I knew it because I knew I didn't know it and I knew it because I knew I didn't prepare it numerous times I will have be in the middle

of speaking something and you know me I'm scripted I've got in front of me the notes and I'll go off script this is always dangerous cuz when I go off script this is when I get in trouble but every now and then I'll meet somebody at the door with tears in their eyes saying that was the thing I was waiting for from God I was unaware I didn't know why I it it pops in your head and you have to quickly evaluate is this a good thing to say does it match what the scripture I'm

teaching says if it does sometimes you just say why because the hand of the Lord is upon you [Music] I don't have an [Music] offering to bring to you e