You know, since people were in and out with snowstorms and holidays and other demands, and also too, I think we did have a glitch in one of our recordings. I thought it might be good just to get brought it back up to speed. We also have new people who've joined us. We're glad Dee is a part of our study as well. So we thought it might be good just to bring everybody back up to speed again and just do a brief overview of chapters 1, 2, and 3. I'll see how we're doing time-wise. If we can go back and finish up chapter 3 tonight, we'll see. But yeah, we're about halfway through chapter 3. But if we don't, let's at least all be on the same page with at least chapters 1 and 2 and what we have already discussed in chapter 3. And as we mentioned, Ezekiel is one of the major prophets of the Old Testament, and we said that he's writing this book roughly during the exilic period of Israel, between the time that Nebuchadnezzar had overtaken the city of Jerusalem, he had defeated the people of Judah, he'd taken over that city, And some of the people of Jerusalem, of Judah, were exiled at that point. But then years later, Nebuchadnezzar actually comes back and destroys the city, and destroys the temple. And so the first chapters of Ezekiel is first dealing with that time period. The time between Nebuchadnezzar overtakes Jerusalem, but before he destroys Jerusalem. And so here in chapters one, two and three, this is the time period we're talking about here. And we're looking at that and we're trying to understand that from that historical perspective. So we have a little better glimpse as to where Ezekiel is coming from and the significance of Ezekiel having these visions from God and being called by God into the ministry. For us to understand God's message to the people of Israel through Ezekiel, it's good for us to know what was going on historically so we understand the full context of God's messages to his people at that time. So at the outset of this writing, once again, Jerusalem has not been destroyed yet, and so some of the things we're gonna see in Ezekiel's prophecies are once again warning the city of Jerusalem and the people of Israel to repent. You know, this is God giving the people of Israel an opportunity to repent and get their lives straightened out, so to speak. You know, to turn away from their immorality and their idolatry and to return to the biblical worship of God. So once again, this is why we're saying it's important to understand what's going on historically here. It's important to understand what's going on spiritually here. Because can we, would we, once again, this is me speaking hypothetically here. But is there any reason why God should not have just destroyed Jerusalem from the outset when we see how sinful they were, especially when we read some of the other Old Testament prophets? We looked at in Isaiah, Isaiah was writing before Ezekiel, and we saw God was speaking through the prophet Isaiah when he was calling Isaiah into the ministry. He was saying the same thing to Isaiah that he was saying to Ezekiel here. And we saw that in Isaiah chapter six. You know, here's God saying, hey, look at how hard-hearted and stubborn and sinful the people are. You're gonna go to them, you're gonna preach to them, and they probably won't listen to you. In fact, he says they won't listen to you. We see God saying this to Ezekiel as well. And Isaiah's writing before Ezekiel. So would we have blamed God, so to speak, hypothetically speaking, if God had destroyed Jerusalem from the onset through Nebuchadnezzar? He could have done that. He didn't do that. He's still giving the people of Jerusalem an opportunity to repent and believe and get right with him. And he's giving them another warning, so to speak, here, by having Nebuchadnezzar overtake them. And he's trying to get a hold of their attention. And so they should have really realized at this point, hey, you know, God is serious here. What he was telling us through Isaiah, what he was telling us through Jeremiah, what he's telling us through these other prophets, we should have been listening because now look what happened. The Chaldeans have come in. They have overtaken our city. And like I said, how tempting it is to really read through all the prophets, to read through Isaiah and Jeremiah and see how all these things were being preached to the people during this time period at the end of the kingdom of Judah. And so it wasn't like God was just being willy-nilly here. It wasn't like God was being harsh or mean-spirited. No, if anything, we see the patience of God, the love of God, the compassion of God, the opportunity that God is blessing them with to say, hey, I desire to be in a loving covenant relationship with you. So repent and come back to me. If you don't, I have no choice but to bring in other nations to overtake you and to conquer you. and to bring you under judgment. And so once again, when we understand that full historical context of what's been going on, and also we discuss in our study on biblical hermeneutics, we discuss scripture is consistent with other scripture. We see what God is saying through Ezekiel is perfectly consistent. If you were to go back and read through the entire book of Isaiah, or go back and read through the entire book of Jeremiah, you would see that God was consistent in his message to these people. But those other passages, through those other prophets, through those other books of the Bible, are also reinforcing and giving us context to what we're seeing through here, through Ezekiel. So we don't wanna just read through this and say, oh yeah, these are evil people, and God was gonna judge them. No, we need to understand the significance of this historical period so that we understand how patient God is, how loving God is. And we also have to understand that God had a covenant relationship with the people of Israel. And he had told them from the onset through the prophet Moses. He said, if you worship me and serve me and love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, I'm going to bless you. If you don't, you're facing my judgment. That goes all the way back to the prophet Moses, to the people of Israel. So it wasn't these people were not aware of what's going on. He says, no, you're going to be my people. I'm going to be your God. I will bless you. He had shown them throughout all this history of how he did protect them, how he did deliver them, how he did bless them, and how he always warned them. But if you're not faithful to me, I have to give you over to judgment. So when we understand this whole full historical context, if anything, we see that God is one more time giving the people of Israel an opportunity to repent and believe through the prophet Ezekiel. What's also interesting here that we find out in the first chapter is we find out who Ezekiel is by vocation. And here was a man being trained for the priesthood and being trained to serve in the temple in Jerusalem. And where is he? He's not in Jerusalem, he's in Babylon. He's not serving in the temple, he's in Babylon. Not serving God the way he had been trained to. He's just living amongst the other exiles. And it's in this context that God comes and speaks to him. And we saw there in chapter one, once again, we see just how amazing God is. Because if we were Ezekiel in that situation, don't you think we'd be questioning, saying, God, what are you doing here? What's going on in my life here? We have those struggles in our relationships, in our jobs, and with our health. We'll sometimes many times ask God a question, oh God, things seem to be running so smoothly, and then boom, all of a sudden we hit this obstacle in life. Things aren't going the way that I planned, or the way I thought things should be going, or the way I even thought you were leading. That can sometimes happen. We can sometimes think, oh, well, God clearly wants me to be a witness, so I've been witnessing to all my family and friends, but they're not repenting and believing. And we sometimes question, God, God, what's going on here? I'm trying to be faithful to you. And yet I don't see the results that I thought would have come from this ministry. And so we're learning something here as well, that even people who are faithful to God, they may question and say, well, God, I've been faithful to you. But why aren't things working out the way that I thought they should be working out? Can we really blame Ezekiel? And once again, I'm kind of surmising from the scriptures here. And once again, I'm also kind of speaking kind of rhetorically here and hypothetically here. But if those were in Ezekiel's thoughts, would we really blame him if he was having some of these questions? But now we see from the whole text here that God had a much better plan and a much greater purpose for Ezekiel than just serving as one of the many priests in the temple. God is calling him out to be the prophet to the people of Israel and to warn them and to exhort them to return actually back to proper temple worship. He's actually being gracious and loving and caring of Ezekiel. Because if Ezekiel was a faithful man, he wouldn't have been effectively serving in the temple. Because as we go on and read throughout the book of Ezekiel, we see that they weren't properly worshiping God with the proper temple worship. They were practicing idolatry in the temple. They were honoring God with their lips, but their hearts were far from them. So in some ways, God was delivering Ezekiel from being a participant in false worship. And instead, he's calling Ezekiel out and saying, I have a greater ministry for you. I want you to reveal my word and my truth and make my glory and my love known to the people of Israel. And then we see that, once again, we looked at this, that God revealed all his glory to Ezekiel, and he did it directly, directly to his person. He does it in this overwhelming, powerful way. First through a theophany, we see that through certain aspects or features of nature, God speaks to Ezekiel. We saw a whirlwind of fire, which is basically a cyclone with all sorts of, or a tornado, depending on what part of the country you live in. I understand there's not really a technical difference between a cyclone and a tornado. I don't think there is. I think it just depends on what region you're in. So there may be some technical differences, but it's a big whirlwind, a wind that goes around and destroys everything in its path. That's what Ezekiel is witnessing here. And he's seeing all sorts of flashes of lightning and thunder, and he hears the voice of the Lord come out of that. We also see God displaying his glory through his creatures. God sends forth four of his great angelic beings. I like how Steve Lawson described these angelic beings. He called them supercharged creatures. These are angelic beings. We noticed they had four heads, four sets of wings, and they're just powerful and they're glorious. And we made this distinction that what they're really doing is not protecting God in the sense of like we think of the Secret Service protecting the president, but what they're really doing is they're really protecting the glory of God. from any sinful man. And who they're really protecting is really us. Because we can't come into the very presence of God. And so they are maintaining sort of the boundary of God's glory and His holiness. And we also see that they are being sent forth by God as God's servants. And we saw through this that God makes His glory known through His creatures. And it wasn't meant to be any different than His earthly human creatures. If you go back to Genesis 1, we were created what? In the image of God. We were created to make God known, His glory known, His invisible attributes known. God makes his glory known through his creatures. And yes, we see in this very powerful way through these, like I said, these supercharged beings, angelic beings, he makes all his power known and he shows that his angels are working over his creation and maintaining order over the creation. And we saw these great images of these angels being able to control these huge, powerful wheels that are going from heaven down to earth, okay? And what we saw from that illustration was, is that God is over all these things. He's over all of this work. We see that wheels are really an image or a representation to us of how things function and work. The wheel was the first basic innovation and invention of man for man to exercise power and control over this earth. It was a basic tool of technology that God gave man to be able to work and function and to travel and go about and do things. And so we have this great powerful image of these great powerful angelic beings also using wheels. We see that those wheels are working in perfect harmony with each other, perfect unison with each other. And these angels are, once again, they're covering and exercising power and control over all the ends of the earth through these wheels. Once again, we see that God not only makes his glory known through his creatures, but he also works through his creatures to make this world function. And once again, we have to go back to the Genesis account of our creation and why God created us. What did he tell man and woman to do? He told them to fill the earth, to spread out and fill the entire earth, take control, exercise dominion and control to work over this entire planet. He was going to work through Adam and Eve. He was going to work through all of Adam and Eve's descendants to exercise and make his glory known throughout all the world and carry out all his work and all his purposes throughout all the world. These angelic beings are an example to us of how God originally intended to work in us and through us as human beings, as people. And that it's all in God's perfect harmony and order and perfection. Now these are basically displays of God's power and glory, as we said, through nature, through his creatures. And then we see one final display of his glory here in that first passage in chapter one. And now this is a Christophany. We talk about a Theophany. where God speaks in some way through nature. And once again, we compare that with some other texts in scripture. We looked at Moses, God spoke to Moses what? Through a fiery flaming bush, a bush that was on fire but not consumed. Once again, that's a theophany. That's an appearance of God in nature by God speaking through some powerful image in nature. Christophany is similar to that, it is a manifestation of God's power and presence in creation, but it's more specifically through the pre-incarnate Christ. What we mean by that is this, Christ had not taken on human flesh yet. We know Christ existed from all eternity, In fact, there was a good discussion last week, and Angela pointed us to John 1 and Genesis 1, and the beginning was the word. That's referring to Jesus. Jesus has always existed. He's always existed in some form. And the only difference between Jesus in the Old Covenant, under the Old Covenant, and Jesus under the New Covenant, is that under the New Covenant, he actually came into this world and took on human flesh. But he did have some glorified presence He had some sort of glorified image or person or being or existence or form that was similar to a man before he actually came into the world and took on a human body. So Christ did appear in the Old Testament in the likeness of a man, even though He had not taken on actual human flesh yet. That doesn't happen until the first Advent, which we're celebrating now at this time of year. Christ became a baby, was born into this world, was born of a virgin, grew in wisdom and stature. and went on and became a minister to people throughout Galilee and through Israel, Jerusalem, and amongst all the Jews and the Gentiles. He faithfully preached and taught and lived out God's Word. He became flesh, and what? He dwelt amongst us. He lived with us. He wasn't just making some glorified, isolated appearance in the image of a man. This is something where he actually came and took on a human body, not just the form of a man, he became a man and he lived amongst us and he ministered to us. And in that human body then he was also crucified for us and raised up for us. The incarnate Christ. But before he took on that earthly ministry under the New Covenant, we see these illustrations throughout the Old Covenant of where Christ did still appear in the form of a man, but he had not yet taken on human flesh yet. Do we have a full description of what that really looked like? No, we don't. But we see a lot of similarities described in the Old Covenant, which we can compare to his appearance in the New Testament, New Covenant. For example, here in Ezekiel 1, we see him sitting on his throne, reigning on high. That's why we looked in John chapter 4, where the apostle John saw the Lord Jesus Christ reigning on his throne on high. And once again, surrounded by four heavenly creatures. is practically the same description that John sees in the book of Revelation is the exact same illustration of what Ezekiel witnessed here in chapter one, of Christ sitting on his throne. Once again, the only distinction being is that when John saw Christ sitting on his throne, he was the incarnate Christ in his full glory. He already walked on this earth, he had already been crucified and raised up and ascended on high and is now sitting on his throne. But Christ has always reigned from his throne. He's always been in control. He's always been in charge. He's always been the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He's always been the eternal almighty God. But now God speaks through his son Jesus Christ in this pre-incarnate form here to Ezekiel here in the first chapter and wants to get Ezekiel's attention. So God has displayed his glory through the Theophany, speaking through all these powerful forms of nature. He has spoken through his creatures, he's demonstrated his power and control over all of the world through his angelic beings. And he has also appeared to Ezekiel in the glory of a Christophany, a pre-incarnate Christ, sitting on his throne. Stop and think about how God is making himself known to Ezekiel. There shouldn't be any argument. There shouldn't be any question. There's no ambiguity here that this was God appearing to Ezekiel and God speaking to Ezekiel. And God is doing this. He's making this glory known to Ezekiel because of the state of Israel, where they are at this point, and how sinful they are, and how they had suppressed the truth about God, how they exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They did not give thanks to God or glory to God. And so here's God saying, hey, I'm still God. And here's my glory. You're not going to properly worship me in the temple. You're going to worship other idols. You need to be reminded who I am. Here I am as God. Here's all my glory. And he's making himself known to Ezekiel to go back and testify of this to the people of Israel. And we'll discuss this a little more in the next chapter, but we should be taking this to heart. Now stop and think, God has made his glory known to us in his son, Jesus Christ. How much more accountable are we than even the people of Israel? God has now made himself known in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Christ, the full glory of God in his Son, Jesus Christ. He came into this world, he dwelt amongst us, he obeyed God's law for us, he taught us God's word, he was crucified for us, he was raised up for us, and now he's ascended and sat down again on the right hand of the Father, and he's returning again for us. This should make us appreciate how God has revealed his glory to Ezekiel here in the old covenant should make us appreciate that much more how he's made his glory and love known to us through his son Jesus Christ in the here and now and the present age and under the new covenant. Before we go on any further, any questions or thoughts about this overview in chapter one? Do you think I left anything out for some of you? But any thoughts or questions or comments about that? I'm sorry. Okay, there we go. Okay And I think too when we consider this Here's Ezekiel a faithful man of God He's been exiled from his homeland He's been exiled from his work It would not be surprising if we found out that he was feeling downhearted discouraged not knowing what direction to take in his life, let's say, but here God displays his overwhelming glory to him. And that should be a lesson to us. We shouldn't be downhearted or discouraged in our circumstances. We shouldn't be downhearted and discouraged when things don't seem to be going the way we think things should be going. because God has made his glory known to us through his son Jesus Christ. And even though we have this incredible display of God's glory here in chapter one of Ezekiel, and I don't mean to denigrate that in any way or diminish that in any way or take away from that in any way, but it does not compare to God making his glory known to us through his son Jesus Christ. as great, and as amazing, and as overwhelming, and as powerful, and as beautiful, and as wonderful, and as awesome, and as frightening, and as terrifying as this was a display of God's glory, it doesn't even compare to God making His glory known to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. We should take that to heart. Yes, God in days past, referring to the old covenant, Hebrews 1 tells us, he spoke to us in various ways and means. He spoke to us through theophanies and through angelic beings. But now, he has spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ. And as you go on and read through the book of Hebrews, you find out that we are that much more accountable before God, because He has now spoken to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. And if all the people of the Old Testament were trusting in God, having not seen the coming of the incarnate Christ, how much more so should we be trusting in God, having seen the incarnate Christ? So, it's very sobering and humbling. And like I said, I'm not trying to diminish the great image we have here of God's glory, but we should compare it with God making his glory known to us in his son, Jesus Christ, and take that to heart, okay? If there are no other questions or comments, let's press on to chapter two. Yeah, we see God shaking things up here, so to speak. Terrifying Ezekiel in a certain sense. I mean terrifying in a good positive way. But we should be terrified when we consider the very holiness and glory of God. He is an insurmountable, immeasurable, glorious, powerful God. We cannot stand before God. And that's another thing we glean from him speaking to us through these angels. Even these angelic beings could not face the full glory of God. And as I said, these are supercharged creatures. These are great, powerful, heavenly beings. These are great, heavenly, powerful beings that haven't sinned against God. All they've done is worship and serve God. And yet they couldn't even be in the very presence of God. and look upon him directly and fully experience all his power. They had to have their backs turned to him in a certain sense. They had to cover their faces. Now here we are, mere humans, mere creatures, earthly creatures, and you add to that we're sinful, rebellious creatures as compared to the angels, how much more so can we not stand in the very presence of God? So we should be terrified if God makes his glory fully known, or even partially known to us, not fully known, but partially known to us, how much we should be in absolute terror and fear. And we see that here because we see Ezekiel fell on his face. And once again, this is similar to what we see with the prophet Isaiah. When he's exposed to a Christophany, when he's exposed to the glory of God sitting on his throne, he falls down on his face. All he can do is bow down before God. He knows he has no standing before God. Ezekiel fell on his face when confronted by this holy, sovereign, almighty God. He's humbled and he realized he can't stand before God. No one can. And we also see that illustration with the Apostle Peter and the Lord Jesus Christ. When the apostle Peter was first confronted with the glory of Jesus Christ, when he fully understood that Jesus Christ was his holy, sovereign, eternal, powerful God, he got down on his knees and he asked Christ to leave his presence. When he saw Christ almost sink two fishing boats with all the fish, that they had caught based on his command and his power and his leading over all of nature. Peter in that fishing boat says to Jesus, get away from me. I'm a sinner. Depart from me. That's similar to what's happening here to Ezekiel. That's similar to what happened to Isaiah. When we come into the very full presence of God's glory and His holiness, we realize we can't stand before God. And we fall down on our face. But as we see with Peter, as we saw with Isaiah, as we see here with Ezekiel, Once again, as glorious, as powerful, as holy, as sovereign, as righteous as God is, we also see that He's gracious, He's merciful, He's loving, and He hasn't given up on us. Because He says, I know you're a sinner. I know you're a terrible, wretched creature. I know you've rebelled against me. I know you've hardened your heart against me. I know you've made yourself God, that you think you know better than me. But guess what? I'm still gonna work in you and through you. That's what Jesus said to Peter. Yeah, you thought you knew better than me. You thought you knew better than me that we wouldn't catch any fish today. That's why you came up with a little whiny response. Well, you know, we were out all night trying to fish. We didn't catch anything, but okay, Jesus, if you say so, we'll go out. Yeah, you thought you knew better than me, right, Peter? And now you realize how sinful you are, and you're asking me to leave your presence. But guess what, Peter? I'm gonna work in you and through you. I'm gonna make you a fisher of men. And that's what God says to Ezekiel here in this second chapter here. Yes, he makes all his power and glory. No, he humbles Ezekiel. He makes Ezekiel realize who he is before God, but then he calls Ezekiel into his ministry. and he strengthens him and he has him stand up. He fills Ezekiel with his Holy Spirit and gives the power for Ezekiel to stand up again. And he commissions Ezekiel and says, Ezekiel, I'm gonna make you a fisher of men. I'm gonna send you to the people of Israel and you're gonna preach the word of God to me. This is what God does. We should not take for granted his glory, his greatness, his power, his truth, his righteousness, his holiness. We should not take for granted that we have no right to stand before him, that we are terrible sinners, and that we are deserving of his wrath, his just wrath. But let's also rejoice in the reality that he's so gracious and merciful to us, and he still calls us to him. and he calls us to serve him. Was Paul not confronted by that? When he sees the resurrected Christ, when he realizes he's been sinning against Christ, this man he'd been persecuting, and here Christ says, okay, Paul, You've persecuted me, you've hated me, you've rejected me, but guess what? I'm gonna send you to the Gentiles. And Paul knew when you see throughout all his epistles, you see this in all his writings, he makes it clear it was God's grace that he empowered me to preach the gospel. I was the chief amongst all sinners. He uses similar language to what God says here to the people of Israel, calling them stubborn and stiff-necked and hard-hearted and impudent and insolent. That's what Paul says. I was an impudent man. I was an idolatrous man. But out of God's grace, he uses me to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul was fully appreciative, not only of God's holiness and power, and he had no right to come into God's presence outside his son, Jesus Christ, but he also appreciated God's grace and mercy to him to use him in the ministry. We should take that to heart. And we made it clear, too, when we went through this second chapter, you know, because sometimes people question and wonder about, well, how can I be used in ministry? Am I being called into ministry? Sometimes people are looking for some great signs and wonders. Oh, you know, and we sometimes hear these accounts, these testimonies. I'm not going to judge them one way or the other, but sometimes you hear people say, oh, an angel spoke to me, or Jesus appeared in my backyard at a barbecue. You know, hear all sorts of stories about how, quote unquote, people got called by Jesus into the ministry. And then you find out, sadly, other people are looking for that, too. I'm not sure how to serve God. I don't know what God would have me do. And I haven't gotten any great sign or wonder. Well, once again, Let's understand that God, yes, to Ezekiel, he made his glory known in this tremendous display of theophany and a Christophany, but now he's made his glory known to you in his son, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ has already called you into the ministry through the disciples. He called the disciples and commissioned them. He raised them up. He gave them standing. He empowered them by the Holy Spirit to go out and preach the gospel. And he commanded them to go out and make disciples, teaching everything God had commanded. And through that commission, we are also commissioned. We are also called and commissioned to serve Christ in the ministry and go out and make disciples. Because Christ told them, you go out and you teach others. teaching them all I commanded. And what he commanded them was to go out and teach others. And so we've also been commanded to go out and teach others. We don't need some big glorious display. We don't need angels visiting us. Christ has already appeared to us in his glory. He's already called out his disciples. His disciples were empowered and strengthened and lifted up by his Holy Spirit of Pentecost. They went out and started preaching to Judea and Samaria and all the ends of the earth. And when they went out and preached the gospel, the people who heard the word of God were filled with the spirit and called upon the name of the Lord and believed and repented and then were also sent out to share the word. This is what God does when he calls people to ministry. He strengthens you to serve him in the ministry. He gives you his Holy Spirit. He's constantly done that. He did it through the prophets, he did it through the apostles. He strengthens you to stand before him and he strengthens you to serve him. If you've truly been called by Christ, you know your sins have been taken away. And you know it's His grace that you can now worship Him and serve Him and share His gospel with others. That's already been revealed to you in the Scriptures, speaking of His Son, Jesus Christ, and what Christ commanded His disciples. So like I say, I give you a little careful caution and warning about people who claim to have had all sorts of extraordinary quote-unquote callings, and I caution you to be looking for some sort of extraordinary sign to serve Him in the ministry. He's already spoken to you through His Son, Jesus Christ. And as we were even praying here tonight, when we think about all of our loved ones, our family, our friends, our coworkers, all the people that God puts on our heart to minister to and reach to, that's your calling. These are the people God put in your life. He put your spouses, he put your children, he put your brothers and sisters, he put your coworkers, he put your bosses, he put your next door neighbors in your life. He put that person who cut you off in traffic, had an accident with you, in your life. He puts people in your life, and he expects you to show them Christ, and teach them about Christ, in all that you say and do. And once again, we were reminded from this, because can we not identify with Ezekiel, like this is just being, falling flat on our face before God? And yet God strengthens us by his Holy Spirit and lifts us up and enables us to serve him. That's what God did here with Ezekiel. And that's what God does with us in terms of ministry. He lifts us up and he strengthens us to serve him in ministry. Before I go on any further in chapter two, any questions or thoughts about that? Yeah, Angela. What you were saying about seeking for signs, there's actually a scripture, which again, I'm really bad at remembering exactly where, but it says that an adulterous and wicked day Christians today, something to always put a red flag up, like you said, when you I'm not saying there can't be some personal experience where God may providentially work in your life in a specific situation to speak specifically to a specific person. And there are times too when, in a specific sense, we may be praying, God, I have this opportunity, so please lead me. Here's a specific situation where I need some specific wisdom of how to serve in the ministry here. No, so I'm not trying to take away that there aren't specific providential leadings from God to work in particular circumstances sometimes in your life. But in an overall sense, and as Angela's pointing out to us, it's right there in God's Word. We know there's a sinful, dying world out there. And in a general sense, we should always be, what? Prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have. We should always be going out and making disciples. And yes, there may be specific things where, are you saying, oh, you know, oh, I have this opportunity to go to the mission field. I'm sure like Helen Magnano was praying about, oh, going to Thailand. I have this opportunity, God, is this something you want from me? Providentially lead in my thinking and counsel here and study of your word in prayer. And I'm sure she's even praying now about returning back home to us. I don't know if you saw her last newsletter and you just see her hugging these kids who she's been ministering to the last year. I'm sure that was tearing at her heartstrings to have to leave these children and come back here. But so I'm sure that, there are specific things that she may be praying about. Okay, God, what's the next step where you'd have me serve in ministry? So yeah. there are specifics that we sometimes have to go to God in prayer about. But in this general overall sense, we should know that God has called us into the ministry, God strengthens us in the ministry, God gives us His Holy Spirit, and we don't have to be looking for some extraordinary off-the-wall display of God's power and glory, because He's already made His glory known to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And then in chapter two, and this ties in now to what we will begin to look in chapter three, but we see that Ezekiel said, and this is the people I'm sending you to. I'm sending you back to the people of Israel. And he refers to the people of Israel as being a rebellious house who are impudent and who won't listen and who violate God's laws. And we see another reiteration of this as we looked at last week in chapter three. And we can make the point that in some ways, chapter three, God is getting more specific with Ezekiel about his calling and his commission to the people of Israel. But he lays it right out to Ezekiel right here, the people he's sending him to minister to. He doesn't say to Ezekiel, oh, I'm sending you these great people. who are so loving and open-minded, and they're gonna wanna hear the word of God. You know, he's saying, no, you're going to a people who are gonna reject the word of God. They're impudent. They think they know better. They're hard-hearted. They don't wanna listen. These are people who have been violating my laws, but I'm still sending it to them. And he makes it clear to them, not only won't they listen, not only are they rebellious and impudent, they're gonna persecute you. And you're gonna face challenges and you're gonna face obstacles. Let's just look at that in chapter two, the illustration that he uses there to talk about these obstacles they're gonna be facing. Thought we could start there, verse three. He said to me, son of man, I'm sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. Once again, that's why I said we need to understand Ezekiel in his full historical context. God is referring back to all the history with Israel. and they are impudent and stubborn children. I'm sending you to them, and you shall say to them, thus sayeth the Lord. As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are a rebellious house, yet they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor afraid of their words. And then he uses this illustration here. Though briars and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions, do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house. When he's talking about thorns and briars there, and scorpions, he's talking about their opposition to him. Their persecution of him. These people are gonna cut at you and tear at you. These people are gonna sting you. They're gonna revile you with their words, with their actions. Don't be afraid of that. You're still to go to them and preach the word to them. And look at the words that he's just starting off here with. And of course, as we go through the book of Ezekiel, we're going to see Ezekiel being told to give them greater revelation and more direct exhortations. But here he's just simply saying to them, I want you to go to them and say, thus saith the Lord. I speak. We gotta start there, Ezekiel. Because they're so rebellious, because they're so impudent, because they don't wanna hear, because they think they know better, because they keep breaking my laws, they first have to be reminded that God speaks. Thus saith the Lord. And we're gonna see this phrase throughout Ezekiel. Thus saith the Lord. God speaks. That should stop us dead on our tracks right there. God speaks to us. If the creator of all life, who's fearfully and wonderfully made us, who sustains us, who holds the whole universe together, who has all this glory and power and might over all creation, who has everything working in perfect harmony with itself, who's now made his glory known to us in his Son, Jesus Christ. If he's speaking to us, we better listen. And we should know that when he speaks, he speaks with power and authority. When he speaks, he's speaking in perfect wisdom and knowledge. He knows, we don't. We need to be silent and we need to listen. He's speaking. So the first thing Ezekiel is to preach to the people of Israel is God is talking, listen up. I'm sure Jill will relate to this as a school teacher, how many times a school teacher has to say to her class, kids, listen, listen, turn around and listen. That's the first thing they say. She can't teach them anything unless, hey, they're paying attention and listening. All eyes on me, all ears on me. How many of us had teachers who've done that to us? That's what God is saying here to Ezekiel. Get their attention, I'm speaking here. They better listen. And like I said, when we consider the full glory of God and His power and His display over all creation and through His Son, Jesus Christ, we better listen. He speaks. I'm sorry, Ken, I saw you had a hand up. Did you want to? Oh, OK. So he's saying, I want you to tell them I'm speaking here. They need to listen. Because the problem is that they haven't been listening. So I'm telling you, they gotta start listening. They haven't listened in all this history. They didn't listen to Isaiah, they didn't listen to Jeremiah. But I'm sending you now. And you're to tell them they need to listen. Because I'm God. This is me in all my power, my glory. Here's my son, Jesus Christ, who reigns and rules over all of creation. They better listen. Christ gave many of these same warnings to his disciples. He said, you go out and you teach them everything I've commanded you, everything I've said. How many times did Jesus say, thus saith the Lord? When people thought they knew better than Jesus and were trying to question Him and challenge Him, when all the Pharisees and the scribes all were coming to Him and all these lawyers were asking Him all these questions about the law, because they thought they could trap Him, because they thought they knew better than He did. They thought they were smarter rabbis and smarter religious leaders. How many times did Jesus just turn on them and say, thus saith the Lord? This is what God says. This is what God's Word teaches. You don't know what you're talking about. This is what God said, and you've perverted God's word. You've rebelled against God's word. You've rejected God's word. One of the things that Jesus first taught was, thus saith the Lord, God speaks. And Jesus was saying he was God, and Jesus was saying that he knew what God was talking about, and how the people were so amazed of the power and the authority he spoke God's word about. Of course he spoke it powerfully and authoritatively. He wrote it, it was his word. Thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord Jesus Christ. Very verily I say to you, truthfully, truthfully I say to you, this is the truth, and I'm the way, the truth, and the life, so you better listen to me. And he said that to his disciples. And he told them to go out and what, teach everything he spoke about. Everything he commanded, everything he taught. And Jesus warned his disciples, they're gonna reject you. They're gonna scorn you, they're gonna mock you. Jesus said that to Paul. You've been persecuting my church, now you're really gonna find out what persecution is. You're gonna be persecuted for preaching of the gospel. So God not only calls us into the ministry in his grace, he not only strengthens us in the ministry for his grace, but he also warns us about our ministry in his grace. And he tells us, don't be afraid. As much as God strengthens us, God also tells us, be strong. Let's understand both those dynamics. We do need God to strengthen us, but then we need to be strong. Christ did this with Joshua. He says, you're gonna go and you're gonna conquer this land. Yeah, there's gonna be opposition there. Stand up, I'm gonna strengthen you. I'm not gonna leave you nor forsake you. But be strong, Joshua. We need to understand both dynamics. We need to understand that only God can strengthen us to serve him in the ministry. But when he does, we then need to be strong. We need to be intentional in our strength, in our courage, in our conviction. We need to stand up. God strengthens us to stand up, but then we need to stand. We can't do it without him, but when he does strengthen us, we better stand, we better be strong. Even though people are gonna reject us and hate us and scorn us and revile us and say all sorts of evil about us. And once again, we shouldn't be surprised. Because they reviled and scorned and mocked and hated Jesus and persecuted Jesus. That's almost what God is saying to Ezekiel here. Yeah, they're not gonna listen to you, but guess what? They haven't been listening to me either. So don't be surprised if they don't listen to you. That's what Jesus tells us. They didn't listen to me, so don't be surprised if they don't listen to you, but be strong, persevere, continue preaching the word. Continue to make my glory known, because it's not a question whether they believe and repent or they don't believe and repent. I'm gonna be glorified either way. They're gonna know I've spoken to them. They're gonna know that a prophet has been amongst them. They're gonna know that God has spoken, that thus saith the Lord. I will be made known. My glory, my power, my truth, my righteousness, my holiness will be made known, regardless of whether or not they accept the message or not. And that's something else we can find strength in, and why we shouldn't be dismayed. Because yes, number one, if they're persecuting us and reviling us and rejecting our teaching, it's not us who are being rejected and reviled and persecuted, it's God who's being rejected and reviled. they're going to have to answer to Him one day. If anything, should we pity them? Should we pray for them? Because they're facing something much worse than anything we could ever do to them. And we should be strong because if Christ still endured, if Christ was still faithful, if Christ still preached the Word, regardless of whether people believed him or didn't believe him. How much more so should we preach the word, whether people believe us or don't believe us, teaching about Christ? Christ was still glorified. Christ was still raised up from the dead. Even though all those people were mocking him on the cross, saying, oh, Christ, take yourself off the cross. If you're really Messiah, you know, come off that cross. Even though they mocked him and reviled him, and they rejected him, It didn't matter. Because he raised himself up three days later. He vindicated his name. He made his power and his glory known. The Apostle Paul made that very clear to the philosophers of Athens. God has made his glory known in the resurrected Christ. You better believe. You better believe. God has made his glory known. You're without excuse now. So we have nothing to fear. We have nothing to feel weak-kneed about or lack any confidence in. This is the truth, because God has made his glory known to us in his son, Jesus Christ. Christ has been crucified and raised up for us. And even though they rejected and scorned Jesus, Jesus still glorified his name. And we're also to glorify his name, whether people reject the gospel or accept the gospel. We're to make him known. He will vindicate. He is returning again. He is going to judge the living and the dead. And we need to be faithful and be strong and preach the word, regardless of how people respond to it. So that's what we kind of looked at there in chapter two. We looked at how God strengthens us to serve in the ministry, but we need to be strong in the ministry. Any other thoughts or comments or questions? Okay. Why don't we stop here and we can pick up fresh then again with chapter three next week and go through the whole chapter. I think most of you were here last week anyway, in terms of chapter three, right? So, but we'll pick up. Oh, Jill wasn't here. Long story short, he reminds us. He reminds Ezekiel, he gets into more specifics here about how rebellious Israel is. In fact, I will touch upon this because I didn't really make this point last week. Let's go to chapter three there. What I find interesting here, he tells him to go to the people and he says here in verse four, then he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. Once again, when we preach God's word, it has to be God's word. Not what we think. Not our own human wisdom. Not our own ideas. What does God say in His Word? We're not to be cutesy and clever. We're just to say what's in God's word, okay? For you're not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, but to the house of Israel, not to many people of unfamiliar speech and of a hard language whose words you cannot understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you, but the house of Israel will not listen to you because they will not listen to me, for all the house of Israel are, those words again, impudent and hard-hearted. They think they know better, and they don't want to listen. But the lead into that, which I didn't really cover last week, is he's talking about, they speak your language. This isn't an intellectual issue. I'm not asking you to speak to them with some foreign words and ideas. They speak your language. They know what you're going to say. They understand intellectually what you're saying to them. So the reception of God's word is never an intellectual issue. God's word is plain and clear and understandable. God speaks to us in a language that we can understand. God has always done that. No, the reason why they reject God's word is not because they don't understand what's being said intellectually, it's because they are so hard-hearted and somber. It's a spiritual issue, not an intellectual issue. But the other point I want to take about that is this. Our language is not just an expression of communication with one another. It's not just a means of us understanding each other for communication's sake. Our language is also an expression of our culture, what we know, what we experience. So our words are, yes, used to communicate with people, But those words are also obviously an expression of our culture and what we know and what we all experience. I remember, Chris Schaaf was relating one time when he was leading Annika Brau through the membership class. And he said, I use some figure of speech that we know as Americans. That's a reflection of what we say in our American culture. And she just stared right through him. She had no idea what he was saying. I forget what figure of speech he used. but it was something that was not familiar to her from her background, her experience in Argentina. And then Chris had to explain it and try to give some more illustrations to say what he was saying, because he was using a common figure of speech that we use in our day-to-day life. So our language is not just a question of defining words to one another, it can also be an expression of who we are, what we know, and what we experience in our day-to-day life. I remember taking William to the Air Power Museum over in Farmingdale, and I finally found out where they got the phrase, the whole nine yards. I've heard that phrase all the time. Oh, it's the whole nine yards, or it's the whole enchilada. Now, the whole enchilada makes a little more sense to me, but I know it means the same thing. Oh, this is the total package. You get everything, you know. It wasn't until I went to the Air Power Museum that I found out what the whole nine yards referred to. It referred to the waste gunners on the B-17s. They would fire these .50 caliber machine guns and they had nine yards of .50 caliber ammunition in their ammo boxes. And if planes where German Messerschmitts were flying by them and they were trying to shoot them down, they would use all that ammunition up in the plane. The whole nine yards of ammunition. Those ammunition boxes were always filled with nine yards of .50 caliber bullets. and they would burn through all those bullets trying to shoot down these Messerschmitts. That's where we get the phrase the whole nine yards. See what I'm talking about? These are cultural expressions that we have that may be common to our day-to-day living and our cultural experience to help communicate with one another. And I want to emphasize that because I think that's also what God is saying here through Ezekiel, that these people know who I am. They know what I'm about. They know what I've communicated to them through the law and the prophets through this whole time. As a culture, as a people, they know all these basic principles and truth about who God is. It's not just a common language in the sense that they know the definition of the words you're using. They also know who I am, because I've always made myself known to them. They're familiar with these ideas. They're familiar with the ideas of me being a righteous, holy God, and that if they obey me, they'll be blessed. If they reject me, they'll be cursed. They're familiar culturally with what you're saying to them. And once again, this goes to the fact of how hard-hearted they are, how impudent they are, how they don't wanna listen. how hard-hearted and how rebellious they are, how lawless they are. They know better. So it's not a question of them not being able to understand what you're trying to say to them. Now, if you were trying to explain to me right now calculus, I wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. If you're telling me how to measure the rotation of the planets and the stars and astrophysics and measurements through calculus, I'm sorry. I have no clue. Okay? I just passed trigonometry by the skin of my teeth. To this day, I still can't tell you the difference between a sine and a cosine. I can't. I love math all the way up to geometry. In 11th grade I had to take trigonometry and never opened another math book again. It's beyond me. It's beyond my intellectual capacity. That's my shortcomings. That's not what's going on here. These people intellectually understand all that's going on. They've had my word this whole time. They've experienced me culturally and historically. They know what's going on here. They're still rejecting me. This comes to play for us as Christians because we're told this is the world we're going into. People who suppress the truth, who exchange the truth for a lie, who serve the creature rather than the creator. Paul said to the Romans, you're without excuse. You know there's a God. Only the fool says there's no God. You know also you're a sinner and you've broken God's word and you're accountable to that God. But you don't want to do anything about it. You don't seek repentance, you don't seek mercy. You don't acknowledge your sin before me. You know better. That's who we're being called to minister to as Christians. People who know better. Sometimes I think we as Christians, we can sometimes get bogged down in apologetics and getting into arguments about people about, oh, well, you know. Yeah, we know God created the world because, oh, only an intelligent designer could put this all together. Even scientists will tell you nothing comes from nothing. We can come up with all these intellectual, philosophical arguments. about why people should believe in God. You can come up with all the historical proofs and evidences to show that Christ rose from the dead. And they'll even say, okay, I'll agree that's an historical record, but they'll still reject God. They'll still reject his son, Jesus Christ. It's not really a question of intellect. It's not really a question of understanding. It's not really a question of culture and experience. It's a question of the heart. that people are willfully rebelling against God. This ties back into what we just read. We need God, we need his Holy Spirit to change our lives. We need God, Holy Spirit to call us and equip us for his service. We need God's Holy Spirit to change our hearts and our minds and our wills around. This is gonna be another continuing theme throughout Ezekiel. People's hearts have to be changed. by God's Holy Spirit, by God's Word, by God through His Spirit applying His Word to their hearts and lives. And that should be a matter of priority to us, a matter of prayer. We shouldn't be preaching God's Word without first asking the Holy Spirit to work in and through us and for the Holy Spirit to work in and through the people we're ministering to. Their hearts need to be changed. We can come up with all the most brilliant intellectual arguments in the world, and like I said, you may even get people to agree with you intellectually, but their hearts need to be changed, need to be changed by the Holy Spirit. We need the Spirit working in us and through us, and we need the Spirit working in and through them to get this message across. Is there any difference, really, in terms of the heart of man between ancient Israel after the captivity of Jerusalem in 21st century cultural America. Can we say this about the American culture today, about how rebellious it is, how hard-hearted it is, how impudent it is, how they won't listen? We gotta pray for our culture. If we're gonna witness to Him, we gotta ask God that He gives us the Holy Spirit and the means to share the gospel, to strengthen us, but also for the Holy Spirit to work in their lives. Any other thoughts, comments, or questions? That even brings Jill up to speed, I think, of what we've done so far in the first three chapters here. Any other thoughts or comments? Okay, so we'll finish up chapter three next week, and why don't we just close in prayer? In fact, Ken, could I ask you to close us in prayer?