All right, everybody, let's go ahead and get going. It's nine o'clock. There's some more, it's the handouts, the same handouts from last week. But if you need, there's about, I don't know, about 10 extra over there. So if you weren't here last week, there's a few more over there. Okay, so everybody can turn to Ezekiel again. We will finish the book of Ezekiel today, continuing through our Old Testament survey. And last week we got through chapter 1. So today we'll go through the whole book. Today will be much more of a survey of the entire book, and we'll go through it in its entirety. But remember, if you were here last week, if you weren't, that's fine. It'll be easy to pick up, but last week we kind of set up the whole broad structure and overview of Ezekiel, and how it's really a book of multiple visions, but really three main ones that kind of go through the flow of the book. So that's what we'll be focusing on today. Last week we looked at the first one, and we have the three main visions are a vision of God the King. That's what we looked at last week. If you remember, we have the, you know, the four wheels that are moving, they have all the eyes on them, they have the, you know, just this glorious creature that we learned a lot about who God actually is through that vision to Ezekiel. Well, the next two visions we'll go through are a vision of God's departure and a vision of God's coming and the promise of paradise. So we'll kind of start with that second vision. So the second great vision in the book is, it's really a flashback. It's a vision of God's departure from the temple in Jerusalem. This vision kind of reminds us of how far away they are from Jerusalem, how far away they are from paradise. There'll be a theme of paradise here as we get farther along, that true paradise won't be found on the earth. Certainly Ezekiel's exiles in Babylon knew that they weren't in paradise. They knew that they were far away. Ezekiel's vision showed them that Jerusalem also wasn't paradise. They'd gone to great lengths to protect Jerusalem, thinking that holding on to Jerusalem was holding on to God, but that was wrong. So Ezekiel was given this vision, or it's really a series of visions, in which he saw the sin of Israel and God leaving, departing the temple, departing Jerusalem, and God turning his people over to the care of the gods that they or actually loving when they shouldn't have been. So chapters 6 to 24 are prophecies against Israel because of its sin. God wants the people to know exactly why he is deserting them, why he's giving them over to the Babylonians. So the prophecies begin in Israel, or the prophecies against Israel begin in chapters 6 and 7. And the Lord promises, I will turn my face away from my people. What a horrible thing to hear. And just as he promised through Jeremiah, who Logan talked about, I will show them my back, not my face. Again, these are scary words. These are the last things we want to hear. But at the end of Ezekiel, we'll hear some very beautiful words. So Ezekiel is a very much, it's a very hopeful book. So don't get too caught up in this judgment because it's not quite like Jeremiah where there's little nuggets of hope. There's a lot of hope in Ezekiel, and we'll get to that later on. But the core of God's complaint against his people is shown to Ezekiel in chapters 8 to 11. That's where the bulk of these visions that we'll go through are in. So beginning in chapters 8 and 9, God gives him a very specific vision of the idolatry being practiced in the temple itself. So Ezekiel sees this vision and he sees them worshipping these false gods, the Israelites, in the temple even, worshipping false gods, so blatant idolatry. In chapters 10 and 11, the vision continues, but now Ezekiel sees God departing from the temple and its grounds, just as the people had departed from the worship of God. So the people departed from God, so God departed from his people. The vision ends in chapter 11 as the Lord departs the city itself. So we're going to go through, I'll read a bunch of fragments from chapters 8 to 11, but as we read, remember the theme of the book of Ezekiel. It's right there on your handout. Israel's loss of God's presence and the eschatological promise of his spirit. Or like we talked about last week, Kostenberger, who wrote a biblical theology book, said, in a sentence, the prophecy of Ezekiel is the story of the departure of the glory of God from the temple in judgment. and its return in restoration. So kind of think about that theme. Right now we're in chapters 8 through 11. This is a vision really focusing on that departure of God from the temple in judgment. So this is chapter 8, verses 1 through 3. The hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man. Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal. He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy which provokes jealousy. So moving on, I'm in verses nine through 10, still in chapter eight. And he said to me, go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here. So I went in and saw, and there engraved on the wall all around was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel. So continuing on still in chapter eight, verses 16 through 18. And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord. And behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about 25 men with their backs to the temple of their Lord, and their faces toward the east, worshiping the sun toward the east. Then he said to me, have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and promote me still further to anger? Behold, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore I will act in my wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them." So we have these people with their backs to the temple facing in blatant sun worship, S-U-N sun worship. And then in chapter 11, verses 22 through 24, Then the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city. And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen went up for me. So Ezekiel is seeing the same vision of God that we had in the beginning pages now leaving. So we talked about the glory of the Lord and he could see God and how much we learned from that vision. Well, now he's seeing that same glorious Lord departing, leaving. So the people had caused this. The people had caused this separation, this divorce between them and God by pursuing other gods. And in chapters 16, 20, and 23, The Lord uses very graphic language to charge Jerusalem with heinous unfaithfulness. So I'll read a section from chapter 16, verses 15 through 19. But you trusted in your beauty and played the whorehouse because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby. Your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been seen, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and incense before them. Also, my bread that I gave you, I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey. You sat before them. You set before them for a pleasing aroma, and so it was, declares the Lord God. So God is very blatant in his anger and his wrath against the Israelites for what they've done. They've turned their back to the temple, they've turned their back to God, and he uses very graphic language to describe their sin. So many years before Ezekiel's day, God has warned his people through Moses, and we've read this before, but he would send them into exile if they were unfaithful to him. in the book of Deuteronomy. In one of Moses' final speeches to the people of Israel before they entered the Promised Land, he prophesied this, This is Deuteronomy 28, we've read it before. And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you, and you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples. I don't hesitate to read that every week that we do this because, again, God is bringing judgment that he promised for disobedience. He is faithful to his promises, both the promises for disobedience and the promises for for deliverance. So again we have that same tension that we've talked about, and again I don't hesitate because I really think it's the theme of the whole Old Testament at large. How can God be just, but how can He also be the justifier? How can He have these promises for deliverance and for the Messiah that's going to come, yet also stay true to His promises of curses to sin and curses to disobedience? So one thing I find interesting about the book of Isaiah, I mean, Isaiah, sorry, that's a different time. Ezekiel, we're in Ezekiel. We'll get there. Rather than, in Ezekiel, and rather than speaking in a repent or this will happen kind of way, he's really speaking in a this is going to happen sort of way. So let's look at this example from chapter 14 and pay particular attention to the inclusion of Noah, Daniel, and Job here. So remember, Noah and Job were long ago when this is written, and Daniel is actually pretty close to the same time period. But these are three godly men that he's including here, so I'll read this. This is chapter 14, verses 13. Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it, and eliminate it, and eliminate from it both human and animal life. Even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in its midst, by their own unrighteousness they could only save themselves, declares the Lord God. If I were to cause vicious animals to pass through the land and they depopulated it, and it became desolate so that no one would pass through it because of the animals, though these three men were in its midst as I live, declares the Lord God, they could not save either their sons or daughters. They alone would be saved, but the country would be desolate. So something really jumped out to me reading this. What does this kind of hearken back to? With these, there's righteous, God is promising judgment, but there's righteous men within it. Does that remind us of anything? It reminded me of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham is pleading, if there's but 50 righteous men, the Lord says, I will spare it. If there's but 40 righteous men, I will spare it. Well here, it's almost different. It's saying, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job, they will be safe because of their righteousness, but I'm not sparing it. This is going to happen. It's almost like a, you've lost your chance type of way. I've promised judgment, here's the judgment. You know, the righteous ones within it will be okay, but I'm not sparing the city because of the righteous men within it. God did end up exuding judgment on both, Sodom and Gomorrah and Jerusalem, but I just thought that tone of Ezekiel is interesting and it's kind of matter-of-factness. They've kind of used up their chances, so to speak. But God's people, as I said, caused this separation, this divorce, and now they are paying the price. After all the stinging indictments against Israel's unfaithfulness that we've read, we read at the beginning of chapter 24, Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. In the siege, Jerusalem began to bear the punishment of God's desertion." So, in saying, right down this day, which happens a few times in Ezekiel, it's really drawing significance to what is occurring. So again, let's put ourselves in these exiles' shoes. The Babylonians are laying siege to Jerusalem. So not only are they in exile, away from the temple, away from Jerusalem, now Ezekiel is telling them, Jerusalem is being laid siege to, it's being destroyed. The holy city of Zion, where God's presence is meant to be with His people, is being laid siege. So not only are the Israelites away in Jerusalem, but while they're gone, it is being destroyed, and even the destruction of the temple in chapter 33. So I asked last week what it must be to have felt like to be in this situation, and we rightly said, we feel abandoned by God. Well, how much more so With this, not only are we gone away from our home where God's presence is supposed to be, it's being destroyed. So really that feeling of being abandoned by God has got to be really weighing down on the exile's heart. In chapters 25 to 32 and chapter 35, Ezekiel's attention is shifting away from the Israelites, really, and onto the nations. So as we learned from the final chapters of Jeremiah, we learned here that God's justice is not confined only to his people. The nations that looked victorious, both to themselves and to the exiled Israelites, were in trouble with God. God would judge them as well. God's people could be certain that God alone was sovereign over all the nations. So that's another real key theme of Ezekiel that we haven't really dove into. God is executing judgment not just on Israel, but on the nations. So God is the God of the whole world, not just the Israelites, and all the nations are accountable to Him. Psalm 2, let the nations rage. I find some of the wording in these passages interesting. In telling Ezekiel to prophesy against the nation of Moab, God says, I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and the sons of Ammon a resting place for flocks. Then you will know that I am the Lord." So I'm gonna read two passages here, really try to find something that sticks out to you and we'll get into it. So this is God using Ezekiel to prophesy against the nations rather than Israel specifically here. I will make Rabbah a pasture for camels and the sons of Ammon a resting place for flocks. Then you will know that I am the Lord, for this is what the Lord God says. Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and have rejoiced with all the malice in your soul against the land of Israel, therefore behold, I have reached out with my hand against you and I will give you as plunder to the nations. And I will cut you off from the peoples and eliminate you from the lands. I will exterminate you so that you will know I am the Lord. So that's Ezekiel chapter 25. I'm going to read another one from verses 8-10. It's actually just continuing on. Therefore, behold, I am going to deprive the flank of Moab of its cities, of its cities which are on its frontiers, the glory of the land, Beth, Jishamoth, Baal, Neon, and Carithium, and I will give it as a possession along with the sons of Ammon to the people of the east, so that the sons of Ammon will not be remembered among the nations. Something's very specific sticks out to me in these passages. Did y'all catch anything? So again, think of this tension that we've been talking about with the promises of disobedience, but also his unconditional promises for his people. What sticks out to me is these nations are being judged, in the two things I just read, for their sin against Judah and their sin against Israel. Behold, Moab and Sairseh, behold, the house of Judah is just like all the nations. So these foreign nations are, considering the God's people, the Israelites, the Judahites, as just like anybody else. And God is bringing judgment on them, yes, for their sin overall, but also for that. So that's just really interesting to me, because God, even in the midst of all this exile and judgment upon Israel herself, they're still God's people. They have not ceased to be God's people through all this, and the nations are still being judged for not considering that, not recognizing that. So he's judging them for their lack of regard for the people of Judah as being God's chosen people. So again, that Old Testament tension. You can just see little nuggets like that. I mean, there's blatant hope in Ezekiel, we'll get to that too, but there's also these little nuggets of hope too that if you really... paying attention, you can find. God is being faithful to His promises of curses to Israel and Judah for their disobedience, yet in the midst of that judgment, He is still faithful to them as His chosen people. How does this insight transfer over to our church age? Are there any New Testament passages that jump out to you that speak of God's loyalty to His people? This idea that God is faithful to his chosen people. Yeah, there's all kinds of them. This was not a trick question. Romans 8, you know, there's nothing that will separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God's faithfulness, he's faithful to his people. He was faithful in the Old Testament, he's faithful in the New. The same God, faithful to his people. One more little nugget of judgment, then we'll keep going with some hope. Yet, in chapters 33 and 34, God takes his own people to task once more for two reasons. First, he says the leaders are corrupt and only take care of themselves. And second, the people themselves have ignored his words. So I'm in chapter 33, verse 30. As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths they act, their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it." So the people are simultaneously sitting and hearing and enjoying God's word, yet ignoring it. They would go through all the motions of worshiping gods, but their hearts were actually devoted to idols. In short, the people of Israel were tempted to trust the wealth of their land, they were tempted to trust the political stability of the Davidic line, and even the temple, all while ignoring God's word. So none of these things would save God's people. That's a good reminder to us that Christianity is not just hearing the word, it is obeying the word. I mean, I'm not saying we're saved by works by any means, but we should take that word that we hear and apply it to our own lives and seek to live it out. So on to some hope. Yet the last section of Ezekiel's prophecy contains several more famous visions of hope. In chapter 36, for instance, we read about God's remarkable promise to gather his people from the nations, cleanse them from their impurities and idols, replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, and grant them his spirit who will move them to follow his ways and keep his commands. In chapter 37, we will watch how this will be done in Ezekiel's remarkable vision of the valley of dry bones. Ezekiel preaches God's word and the bones come to life. So I'm just, I'm gonna read that real quick. 36, 24 through 28. This is, so Ezekiel's never actually directly quoted in the New Testament, but this right here is referenced quite a bit. I mean, we even prayed ourselves, like, Lord, please give them a heart of flesh. This is where that comes from. 3624, For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them." So this is really, he's speaking to Israel, but it's also foreshadowing and pointing towards the new covenant. He's pointing towards regeneration. He'll take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. In chapter 37, we have the valley of dry bones. We probably remember it, but let's look at it. This is chapter 37, verses 21 through 23. Oh, I missed a verse, let me read it. They said to them, thus says the Lord God, surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations wherever they have gone and will gather them from every side and bring them to their own land. and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all. They shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again." So in this Valley of Dry Bones, Ezekiel again is having this vision of this wasteland of Dry bones in a valley. And there we have that famous verse, can these bones live? Then we get this awesome vision of, it talks about sinews and muscles and these dry bones becoming from dry bones into a living, breathing human that is alive. So can these dry bones live? Yes. And that's what we are. We are all dry bones, yet by the spirit of God, that God is promising even this book of Ezekiel, we are dry bones that can live. Another particularly interesting point was the verses I just read, right after verse 24. In fact, I'm going to re-read that again, and then I'm going to continue on into verse 24. So, what I'm reading here is right after that vision of dry bones. So it's not the vision of dry bones, but it's continuing on with that same theme applying. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, And one king shall be king over them all. They shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions, but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them." So what's interesting about that verse 24? David, my servant, shall be king over them, David's dead. David's long gone. How's David going to be king? David, my servant, shall be king over them. How's that even possible? Because it's Jesus. Exactly. So remember Christ himself told us at the end of Luke, see me in this Old Testament." Well, here we go. David my servant. It's even interesting, if you put yourselves in their shoes, they're saying, David my servant. Someone from the line of David, I'm sure is how they read it at the time. We know that that person, that line of David, is Jesus Christ. So, he's being prophesied here in the book of Ezekiel, and he's going to be king. And guess what? They're going to have one king. We're not gonna be like the book of Kings that we went through before, where it was king after king after king after king. There'll be one king to rule for eternity. So again, that tension. God has exiled them Babylon for their disobedience, yet is promising my servants David as their king. David is long past at this point, so it's surely a reference to the second Samuel 7 prophecy. A beautiful reminder that even in exile, God has not forgotten his promises despite their disobedience. So continuing on with some hope, we have the last great series of visions, a vision of God's coming and the promise of paradise in your handout there. This last great series of visions in the book occurs in chapters 40 to 48, where God shows Ezekiel a new temple. The first temple had been destroyed in the Babylonian invasion after God's departure in chapter 33. Now this, we'll talk about it a little bit. This final vision is, it's somewhat confusing. It's a lot of very detailed... outlines. People take this vision in different ways. Some people will consider it very literal, and it will point towards a future fulfillment of the temple in the Millennial Age. There are some people that see it a little bit more symbolic. I'm not here to give you the answer to that either way. I'm just here to give you the main theme. But I bring it up because it can be confusing. There's a lot of wild parts that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense. It seems just like architectural doodling by an unemployed priest in Babylon, is the way the handout put it. But that is not true. God says to Ezekiel, So this really is the climax of the whole book. Most likely, Ezekiel's listeners would have been enthralled by this vision. Most of all, God's pledge to be with his people would have kept his audience in rapt attention. This is what the vision of God returning to a rebuilt temple in chapter 43 is all about. So this vision is the temple being rebuilt and then it being consummated with God's glory, that same glorious God now returning to the temple and His glory filling it. So this vision of God returning to a rebuilt temple in chapter 43 is what it's all about. Even as Ezekiel had seen the glory of the Lord depart from the temple in chapters 10 and 11, now he watches God's return to his temple. So I am in chapter 43, verses 1 through 5. Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. And behold, the glory of God of Israel was coming from the east, and the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory, and the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when He came to destroy the city, and just like the vision that I had seen by the Chabar Canal, and I fell on my face. As the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. So Ezekiel is a beautiful book when we look at it in this big picture. We have, first of all, God. Who is He? That's what we spent all week last week talking about. This vision of God and His glory. Then we have God saying, you have rebelled against me. In judgment I will leave. This glory is going to depart from you, depart from Jerusalem, depart from the place that is supposed to be yours because of your disobedience. And yet I'm going to remain faithful to my promises and one day You dry bones will live, and I will return in restoration, and I'll give you the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Lord will be filled in the temple once again." That's beautiful. Ezekiel prophesied that the exiles would return to land, and here he promises that the destroyed temple would be rebuilt and filled again with the presence of God. God would once again be with His people. From God's renewed presence and rule, unnumbered blessings would flow, even as a river would flow out of the new temple. So in chapter 47, we even have this river that flows out of this new, rebuilt, glorious temple, and it harkens back to Eden. The purpose of this temple vision was to highlight a restored relationship of God with his people. So the final verse of the book is a fitting ascription. And the name of the city from that time on will be, The Lord is There. This book leaves us with the picture of God forever with His people. Ezekiel is, in a sense, the Old Testament equivalent to the book of Revelation, especially given Revelation's closing visions of God, God's judgment, and the heavenly city. So, in Ezra, Ezra and Nehemiah, those two books, we learn the exiles did indeed return to the Promised Land and they rebuilt the Temple, right? Yet we don't really have, there's no record of it, the glory of the Lord filling the Temple as it did when Solomon inaugurated the Temple. But, centuries later, Emmanuel himself would enter the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem. And in that, so that's interesting to think about. When Jesus Christ was in the temple and when he was doing his ministry, that was the glory of the Lord in the temple right there. And in that final vision of the heavenly city in the book of Revelation, communion with God would become even more intimate. God's people would celebrate not just in his presence, as wonderful as that is, but in full view of him dwelling with him forever. So no matter how you take this final vision of Ezekiel, whether it's a literal rebuilding or whether it's more symbolic, the key theme is the same. God is going to be with his people, and either way, this is future for us, so we can look forward to it. God is going to be with his people again. His glory is going to fill the temple abundantly more than it ever has before, and we will experience that sinlessly. So like Revelation, Ezekiel closes with the glorious hope of paradise. Each tribe is promised a portion of the renewed land, and a land which seems to point beyond what Ezra and Nehemiah returned to find, and a land we still look forward to. Another thing that kind of jumped out at me is this continual theme of east in Ezekiel. If y'all notice that, some of the stuff we've been reading. So think back to Genesis. They leave to the east, the cherubim are guarding from the east. The east just really represents departure. You're away from God's presence. The Israelites in the vision Ezekiel had when he's turning their backs on the temple, they're facing east, facing away from the glorious presence of the Lord. When the Lord comes back again, he's coming from the east to be again with his people. I didn't write that down, this is interesting. Where am I? For our purposes here, two questions still need to be answered. First, why would God offer this renewed hope for His own people? Above all else, God promises to change His people and restore them to Himself for His own namesake. So, why would God still be faithful to His people, despite their disobedience? Exactly, exactly. Chapter 36. It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. God is, and that is, I think it was like 70 times or something like that when God says, for the sake of my name, he will do these things. So even in our glorious redemption, God is acting for his great name, and praise be to God that we get to be benefactors of that. Our benefits from that is glorious, and we're thankful to that, but even the Christian life, it's, Lord, we want your name to be great, your name to be known, And the benefits that we get from that we are grateful for, but we're most grateful that those benefits that we have are giving you glory. So that's the first question that's answered. Second, how will God restore sinners to Himself? After all, He is holy. So we're just getting into that tension again. How can He disregard heinous sin and bring sinners into His presence? Well, Ezekiel only shines a light dimly on the answer to this question, but we do see that God will not simply disregard the sin. He will deal with it. Repeatedly, God calls Ezekiel the son of man. And this son of man symbolizes the bearing of sin on his body when he lays on his side in chapter four. And in chapter 16, God promises a time when I atone for faithless Israel. God also promises that a day would come when He would judge the people's useless shepherds and set up over them one shepherd. Again, we talked about it. My servant, David, and he shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God. And my servant, David, shall be prince among them. On that day, He will also grant His people a covenant of peace. That's in chapter 34. Who would this coming shepherd be? Who does this Son of Man point to? None other than Jesus Christ, who called Himself the Son of Man and laid down His life for the sheep. John chapter 10. By laying down His life on the cross, He paid for the sins of all those who would ever repent and believe. He brought peace for the rebels ready to lay down their arms. He brought forgiveness for the sinners who wanted to be done with sin and knew they could do nothing to forgive themselves. Only through Christ can we be reconciled to the Father." Even the end of Revelation 5, I think. This Jesus Christ is called the root of Jesse. Jesse being David's father. Jesus Christ is this servant David who is the one king. So, we've talked about it before, but Jesus Christ is the answer to this tension. Despite God's people continual disobedience, God provided His Son, Jesus Christ, to be an atonement for sin by going to the cross. In this way, God's justice is preserved. And all the promises of curses for disobedience are poured out on Christ. As they say in Galatians, He is the curse. He became a curse for us. So all these curses that God's been promising in Deuteronomy and the Old Testament, that's being poured out upon Christ and He's becoming a curse for us. So all of these, we're just as disobedient as Israel is. We're reading through all of this and it's easy to point and say, you know, haha, how could they do that? We're the same. We are not unlike them. Yet, if we put our faith in Christ, those unconditional promises are fulfilled by being united to Christ, and God is maintaining that tension. He is now just. He has poured out the punishment that is due to Israel's unfaithfulness, to our unfaithfulness, to our disobedience, yet at the same time, He's providing the redemption that He's long promised. 2 Samuel 7, there'll be a Messiah from the line of David. Well, here we have Jesus Christ right from the line of David. He promised to bless Abraham and make the nations great. Well, the church, here we are. He has blessed Abraham through Christ. All these Old Testament promises are fulfilled in Christ. Now through Christ, we can look forward to God again dwelling with His people as prophesied in this last vision of Ezekiel. So this last vision, points kind of even beyond that. I mean, the whole, it's interesting, the book of Ezekiel has God's judgment on Israel. and them being restored, God's judgment on the nations, and them being restored, well, this last vision is really God's judgment on all of creation and it being restored. That last vision has this river flowing out of the temple, so it's pointing not just to the Israelites or their people, but really all of creation being redeemed. Like in Romans 8, creation groans with eager longing to be redeemed by the sons of men or something like that. Basically, all of creation is in this fall, Ezekiel is pointing to all of creation being in a now-redeemed state. So, that's our tour of Ezekiel. God is with His people, and He will make a way for them to be truly with Him in Heaven. Right now, we're kind of in the already-not-yet tension. We are truly already with Christ. We are dwelling with Him right now, through the Spirit that is within you. Yet, there is a not yet aspect to it as well. We look forward to the day when we will be in this paradise that Ezekiel's pointing forward to in chapters 40 through 48. So, praise be to God. As great as we have it now, we're still battling sin and fallen world. That part will be over sooner than we think. I finished a little early. Any questions or comments? Yes, yeah, it's a yeah, very very big time parallel Yeah, yeah, and my study is John saw it even, like this was more of a vision when John saw it, kind of in reality, really. But yes, it's a direct parallel to the heavenly Jerusalem. Please. Oh, okay. Okay. I was like, go for it. Yes, no, but yes, it'd be a great, right, an awesome thing to take home, homework, so to speak, would be go read chapters 40 through 48 of Ezekiel, and then go read chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation, and see the parallels there. Well, and all through Ezekiel, in my Bible, the cross-references, there are so many into Revelation. Oh yeah, absolutely, yep, big time. Okay, let me pray. Father, thank you so much. Thank you, Lord, for your book of Ezekiel, where we see, Father, that you indeed do not tolerate sin, you cannot tolerate sin, yet at the same time, Lord, you are hopeful, you are merciful. You don't tolerate sin, yet you're merciful to us who are sinners. Lord, we're thankful that you have provided Jesus Christ, that son of David, that son of man who redeemed us from our sin. Lord, help us to walk daily with him. Help us to focus upon him and see him for the treasure that he is. Lord, be with us this week as we go back to work and do all these things and live our lives. Lord, help us to live for your glory, to do all that we do, to help us to deny ourselves and give all that we are to you. We love you, Lord. It's the name of Christ we pray. Amen.