Ezekiel chapter 19. Ezekiel the 19th chapter. I want to start out, but this chapter just kind of pops in there. It doesn't have an introduction. It just kind of boom. It's a lamentation. It's a dirge. It's an elegy. It's a funeral song. given before the funeral. Before the person dies, it's a funeral song. How'd you like to have your funeral song sung to you before you died? Well, I want to share this story, a personal experience. I've gone to about two or three different doctors over the past month or two with I had a pain down with the inguinal area, and I thought it was a hernia popping back up, but it wasn't a hernia, but it was like a knife stabbing me. But imagine this, as I go to the doctor, before I go to the doctor to leave, I get the mail, and as I get the mail, I see one letter, and it doesn't have anything on it as far as who it's from or anything, but it says your gift is inside. Well, you know, I figure it's just junk mail trying to push something. And I open it up, and it's Kerr Brothers offering me a discount. Needless to say, I tore that letter up, and I postponed my doctor's appointment. No, no, no, no, no. I went on to the doctor, but thought it was kind of ironic the timing that you get a letter from Kerr Brothers Funeral Home, and you're about to go to the doctor to see what's wrong with you. But what that was, it was a pre-plan for your funeral. The Lord's timing is always right. In chapter 19, what we see, the whole chapter is a lamentation. A lamentation, like I say, is a funeral song. I remember, it's been years ago, I visited someone who was eaten up with cancer. He was a young fellow in his thirties, and he was a biker. He was a rough guy, a real rough guy. And he couldn't get out of his bed at the time I met him the first time. Somebody told me about him. I went to see him and everything. He told me he was going to die. He told me he was ready. He said he knew the Lord. He said, I've lived a bad past, a rough life, but he knew he was forgiven. And I thought, wow. So he had a testimony, which was good. And so I did his funeral. And when I did it, it was just a graveside service down at the main cemetery. And as we were up in there, one thing that was kind of ironic about it, they would not allow motorcycles in there, but this one chopper come in there. And he drove right up to the funeral site. And I guess because he was friends, they let him do it. But what I did is I gave a message of hope because there was a lot of rough characters. You can imagine this guy's background and the rough friends that he had. A lot of them were people that visited bars and basically lived in bars, in and out of bars, and just rough life. And I remember a couple incidents with that funeral at the graveside. I preached a message of hope, which is in Christ. And I mean that's good news because he knew the Lord. At least that's the testimony he gave. And therefore he was in heaven. And then right at the end of my speaking, I forgot to turn my phone off and Wayne Sparks called me right in the middle of that. There's one memory of that, but another memory I had was right after I got through speaking, this guy with long hair, about down to here, got up with about two or three other guys that play in the bars. And they had their guitars and they got up there and they sang this real slow dirge, you know, like, why this happened, why it's all senseless, life is useless, there's no hope. And I'm going like, you're contradicting my message, you know. Let me speak again after they get through, you know. It was just totally opposite. Well, you know, a funeral dirge, that's what this is. I want us to look and see what it's about, because it's only 14 verses, a very short chapter. But what this is about, it's about the state of things in the royal household during the final days. And it covers basically three kings. A dirge or a lamentation is normally sung or chanted by professional mourners at the funeral or right when the person dies. That's not happened yet. That's what makes this so ironic. This could be classified as an allegory also because you can look at the imagery in it as it talks about a lioness and her whelps or cubs. And I want you to notice this is talking about three kings in particular. One is Jehoahaz II. Another one is Jehoiachin, and the other one is Zedekiah. Zedekiah, remember, was the last one on the throne. And it starts with a command in verse 1. God commands, moreover, take you up a lamentation for the princes of Israel. Here's the funeral song for all the princes of Israel. In other words, it's the end. That's it. Now, the first king that it's talking about, I want you to notice, says, what is your mother? And I believe that's more in reference to Judah. Remember, Judah is a lion's whelp, as it says in Genesis. Here, Judah, it says, a lioness. She laid down among lions. She nourished her whelps among young lions. And she brought up one of her whelps. It became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey. It devoured men." Now, this first one is the son of Josiah. If you look back, and we'll just read just a few verses of Scripture over in 2 Kings. In 2 Kings chapter 23, it talks about Jehoahaz. In verse 21, it starts talking about Josiah. That's the context of it. But when you get down to verse 30, it says, his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo. And that was Pharaoh Necho took Josiah and took him down in a chariot. And anyway, they brought him to Jerusalem, buried him in his own sepulchre. The people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him, made him king, and his father stead. Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when it began to rain. It rained three months. Long rain, ain't it? Three months, and that's all he was king in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Livnah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done. And Pharaoh Necho put him in bands, or he put him in irons, at Ribla in the land of Hamath. that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and put the land to a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt, and he died there. Jehoahaz did not have an illustrious career as king. He was three months, boom, he's gone into captivity, taken off into Egypt. Then it talks a little bit about Jehoiakim. Then it talks about Zedekiah. Zedekiah is actually on the throne. So as he's ruling, this lamentation or this funeral song is being given concerning him and actually all the lineage of the kings of Judah. And it's all coming to an end is basically the message. As you ponder that, can you imagine being the king on the throne and they're singing your funeral song? What God is saying to those that are in captivity, don't look to Zedekiah that he's going to deliver Jerusalem. He's saying to those back in Jerusalem, don't look to Zedekiah as king. He's not going to deliver you from the Babylonians. Don't hope in Zedekiah. God is your only hope. I want you to notice what it says in verse 4. The nations also heard of him. He was taken in their pit. They brought him with chains into the land of Egypt. There goes Jehoiahaz. Now when she saw that she had waited and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps and made him young lion. He went up and down among the lions. He became a young lion and learned to catch the prey of devoured men. He knew their desolate palaces, He laid waste their cities, and the land was desolate, and the fullness thereof by the noise of His roaring. Then the nations set against Him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over Him." He was taken in their pit. "...And they put Him in ward in chains, and brought Him to the king of Babylon. They brought Him into holds, that His voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel." Because they took Him into captivity. in the Babylon, and that's where Zedekiah died. So that's all talking about Zedekiah. There is one part here, it's talking about in verses 1 through 9, about the lioness and her two cubs, how they grew up to be kings, but that's an end. And the whole purpose of this is God is saying, don't trust in man. Don't trust in kings. When you think about in your own life, we don't really have a king that we are looking up to as far as on this earth. What Ezekiel's doing, he's got to give a message where the only hope these people got is their king, at least from their viewpoint, the way they're thinking. So, there are hopes in the king. Ezekiel's taken away hope, but he realizes that's not really a hope. But, you know, before you start pointing fingers, think about how often we do that also. You know, a lot of times people's hopes are based upon man, or upon government, or, you know, it talks about in Scripture, in horses' legs, some people trust in Obamacare. I was talking to a lady the other day in the doctor's office and she asked me, she was African-American, she asked me if I liked Trump. I said, well, he's got some good and he's got some bad, not like we all do. And then she said, well, he's trying to do away with Obamacare. Do you like Obamacare? And she was trying to corner me because she told me she went to a Baptist church also. And I told her, I said, you know what? People are depending upon government too much. I said, I vote on issues. My main issue is I'm against abortion. She says, well, I'm pro-life too. But then she started getting on the bandwagon with trusting in government. And so when I said people need to stop trusting government, She got quiet and didn't ask me nothing else. But you know what? People trust in government. They trust in a handout. They trust in people. They trust in the young lions that might look strong. It's easy to trust in Judah's lions if you look at them, but it's best to trust in the lion of Judah. It's easy to trust your doctor. I said I went to the doctor. I can give you an illustration of this. My doctor said there was no problem. He said it was just the strains all I got and it'll pass. Well, you know what? I can trust that doctor for what he said because he's experienced in this type of thing. But you know what? There could be something else in there. So I'm not trusting that doctor. You know, when you go to the doctor, they ask you how you're doing. You can say you're doing good. But you know that you're only doing as good as far as you know. You don't know what's going on inside your body. Neither do I. And so therefore, the little sharp pain that I get every now and then, you know what? The doctor could be wrong in guessing at it because I don't think he took an x-ray or anything like that. He just poked and prodded and everything. But, you know, he could be wrong. My trust is not in the doctor, but in the great physician. And therefore, whatever comes my way, I know it comes from the hand of a loving Father. In verses 10 through 14, what you see is another allegory, except this time it's the vine and the branches. Now, there was the vine and the branches over in chapter 17. This is not the same allegory. In chapter 17, it was talking about the vine being transplanted. Here, I want you to notice how Judah prospered. In verses 10 and 11, it says, Your mother is like a vine in the blood. Planted by the water, she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters. She had strong rods for the scepters of them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches. She appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches. She was greatly exalted. But I want you to notice, it says, but she was plucked up in fury. She was cast down to the ground. The east wind dried up her fruit. Her strong rods were broken and withered. The fire consumed them. And now she's planted in the wilderness in a dry and thirsty ground. And if I were to just sum up verses 12 and 13, I want you to notice she was plucked up, dried up, broken up, withered up, and consumed up. What's left of her? Nothing. Nothing's left. In other words, God says it's going to end. That's it. And then in verse 13, what you find? She's now in Babylon. And now she's planted in the wilderness, that's Babylon, in a dry and thirsty land. Here's the funeral song as it's being sung. The fire's gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation. It's the funeral song before the death. A couple little, two veins of thought here with two different allegories, two different stories. When you think about it, do we encourage people to continue to hope in things of this world, like the doctor, or the chemotherapy, or the other drug, or whatever it might be. Do we encourage people to hope in those things? You know what? Those hopes are temporary. And what Ezekiel was doing, he was taking away all hope as far as trusting in man. Brother Ron, don't let them tell you there's nothing up there. The Lord knows better. Trust in the Lord. Do we encourage people to hope in things of man? I probably have been guilty a time or two in doing that, but you know what? The only sure hope any of us have got is in the Lord. There are some people that are living for the hope of the tax return. You know what? That tax return, if that's all you're living for, you're going to end up hoping for the next tax return. If that's how you live, you're living in the hole and digging it. Our only hope in any situation that comes into our lives, it doesn't matter what area of your life, it's the grace of God. And you know what? If the grace of God is not your hope, you're in a false hope. You've got your disillusioned, the Israelites were, even as they were in captivity. What Ezekiel was doing, he was taking away all that false hope, kind of like kicking the legs out from under them because their hope was in their legs. What this does though, if you think about it, it sounds harsh. If somebody's got hope, say like in a drug to cure their sickness, If you take the hope away from them, that sounds harsh, don't it? But it's actually compassionate and merciful love if you're pointing them to Christ, who is the only hope. How often we get our focus upon the temporal and off the eternal, on the physical physician instead of the divine physician. We trust in Him for salvation. Salvation very simply defines deliverance. And when you think about, you know, ultimately we believe He will save us completely. He has saved us from our sins. But you know what? When there's problems in life, you know what? He's the only one that can deliver. And when there's sickness in life, He's the only one that can deliver. And you know what, when there's troubles that seem insurmountable, He's the only one that can deliver, deliver, deliver. A song popped in my mind, but that couldn't help but put the first words on Facebook. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord. A wonderful Savior to me. And you know what, I didn't care if anybody responded to that or not. To me, He's a wonderful Savior. You don't want a lot of people responding to that because they know the wonderful Savior. The things that happen to us in life, whether it's sickness or whether it's death of a loved one or problems or... You know what? The purpose of those are to drive us to Christ, to lean upon Him. Life is an ever-living experience of learning to lean upon Him. You never completely arrive. I don't care how old you are, you never have... Nobody can say, I've arrived, I'm here. I don't have to worry no more about that trust issue. No, you're going to struggle with it till the day you die. You know what? That's just life. And God's teaching us to lean upon Him. Let me ask you a question. If you heard your funeral song, like right now, what would you be thinking? But you ain't died. You ain't died yet and you've heard your funeral song. In other words, God says it's coming. Hey, let me tell you, it's appointed unto man once to die. It's coming. Unless the Lord returns, we're all going to die. We're going to all be put six feet under, or burn up in ashes, or if you're out in the sea, you might get thrown overboard and swallowed up by the fishes. Here in the Philippines, the fish eat you, right Cheryl? You know, and you just kind of get scattered abroad. You know what, we're all going to pass away. What we must do, we've got to look to the Lord continually. Because this one fact, He abides faithful. Even when our faith is faltering, even when our trust is weak, you know what? He hasn't changed. He abides faithful. He's always there. Even when you're doubting, even when you're sinning, He's still there. And your salvation ain't based upon what you do, how you believe. Your salvation ain't based on you. It's based upon Christ and what He's done for you. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. Zedekiah, you're nothing but a man. We don't trust you. President Trump, you're nothing but a man. We pray God guide you. But our trust is in the Lord. Let's have a word of prayer.