So let's open up our Bibles to Ezekiel chapter seven. I think we'll read here through verses 10 through 13. In fact, I'm gonna impose on Ken there. You've been volunteered. Would you read verses 10 through 13 for us? Sure. Behold the day. Behold, it has come. Doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed. Pride has budded. Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, none of their multitude, none of them, nor shall there be wailing for them. The time has come, the day draws near. Let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is on their whole multitude. For the seller shall not return to what has been sold, though he may still be alive, for the vision concerns the whole multitude, and it shall not turn back. No one will strengthen himself. who lives in iniquity. Amen. Thank you, brother. As we were mentioning last week, even though we're getting more specifics here in chapter 7 about God's judgment on the city of Jerusalem, we're seeing that he's adding, so to speak, it's fair to say that, maybe for lack of a better term, I'm saying that he's adding here in the sense that he's bringing about a richer, deeper dimension as to what this judgment on Jerusalem entails, and giving a deeper dimension and understanding of just how sinful these people are, and once again, just how holy and righteous he is. And we've been saying throughout this book of Ezekiel, when we see the power and the might of God, when we see Him displaying His glory, when we see Him displaying His righteousness and His judgment, yes, we should be in awe of that. We should be in fear of that. We should have a quote-unquote healthy fear of God. We should have a healthy fear of His righteous judgment. But we also need to keep in mind we should not be imposing on God's just righteousness and wrath our human view on wrath and anger. I think that's the mistake a lot of people make. We look at our sinful selves and see how we get angry, how we get vindictive, how we get wrathful, how we want to get back at people. We need to remember who God is. We need to understand His wrath and His judgment in light of His holy, holy, holy character. You know, the Apostle John told us God is love. The very essence of who He is is love. And then we need to understand what that love is. When we see how God describes love and how He carries out love for people, the Bible doesn't describe it in some sort of sentimental, ooey-gooey, warm, fuzzy kind of way. Really, God's love is expressed by His righteousness. God loves in the sense that He does what's right. He does what's good. He does what's right and good before Him, and He does what's right and good for other people. Now I'm not trying to take away from the affection and the warm feelings I'm sure God has and the personal intimate affection he has for his children because we do see that described in scripture. We read about this in Matthew last week, about how Jesus wanted to take Jerusalem under his wing like mother hen takes her chicks. So yeah, God has compassion, God has affection, but that's really a manifestation and an outgrowth of his holy righteousness. Because God in his very character, his very nature, is to be right, is to be good, is to bless. And that also applies in the exercise of his judgment and wrath. God is not just simply getting back at people here. Oh, those people were mean to me, so I'm gonna be mean to them. No. God is righteous, and he's holy, and he's putting an end to evil. And believe it or not, that's for the benefit of the evil people. He's keeping them from storing up more wrath for themselves. He's keeping them from perpetuating any further evil in the world. and infecting other people with evil. When God puts an end to evil, when he exercises his just, righteous wrath and anger on a sinful world, he's doing it because he's good. He's doing it because he's love. He's doing it because he's righteous. He can't be both love and allow for sin. Because sin is hatred for God and hatred for his ways. It's just evil, and that evil has to be stopped. So yeah, is God pressing this point home here now in chapter seven and giving us a sort of a deeper, like I said, I wanna be careful about saying God adding on here. I think it's more of a question of him giving a deeper insight as to what his wrath is about and why he's pouring his wrath out on Jerusalem. He really wants us to get this. He really wants us to apprehend this and appreciate this. And he wants us to understand it in its full context. And so last week when we started reading through chapter seven, one of the contexts or one of the dimensions that God is giving about his wrath is he said, this is a day certain. This is coming. And once again, this ties in with God saying, you people have not been listening to me. I've been telling you what the right thing to do is. I've been telling you how to live your lives. You rejected my teaching. You rejected the life I gave you and the way of life I gave you. You didn't listen to me. Now I'm giving you over to the consequences of your actions. And you need to know that my word is true. So this is not so much about God getting revenge, as it is about him saying, my word is true, and defending the truth of his word. God doesn't lie. God is truth. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. We can equally refer that to the Father. The Father's the way, the truth, and the life. The Holy Spirit's the way, the truth, and the life. God is about the way, the truth, and the life. But if you doubt God or question God, you're calling Him a liar and you're not trusting Him for how to live your life. Hence Adam and Eve. Didn't take God at His word and destroyed their lives. That's the same point he's making here in Ezekiel 7. You have to take me at my word. And he's being very specific here and very pointed here. There is a day coming. in God's eternal counsel, he knew that day. He knew that day when he was going to destroy Jerusalem in 586 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar and destroy the temple there. And bring about the famine and the pestilence and the bloodshed by the sword and the scattering of the people. He's now adding this dimension or giving us a deeper understanding of this wrath by saying, this is definitely happening. Don't doubt me. Don't second guess me. And that makes it that much more chilling then when we read Jesus in Matthew chapters 24 and 25 and now he's discussing about the second destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. Because once again, the people of Israel didn't take God at his word. Particularly, they didn't take him at his word about their means for salvation and their means for righteousness through his son, Jesus Christ. They rejected Christ. They now have not only murdered all the prophets, now they've murdered his greatest prophet, Jesus Christ. And he's saying, you've rejected the life I was gonna give you through my son, Jesus Christ. You rejected the abundant life, the eternal life, the way, the truth, and the life found in my son Jesus Christ. So now Jerusalem, you're gonna be destroyed. And we looked at it a little bit last week as we read here through chapter seven, then we also read there in Matthew 24 and 25, we saw the striking parallels between what God is saying to Jerusalem here back in 500 B.C., around that time period. And then what Jesus is then saying sometime around 30 A.D., later on. I'm rounding off figures here. But we learned last week, God is definite about His Word. Now, He doesn't tell the specific day. He's just saying there's a day coming. And believe me, that day is coming. And we now know from history, we have the benefit now in the 21st century to look back and say, yeah, God did definitely carry this out. And once again, 586 BC through Nebuchadnezzar. We look back and say, yeah, God definitely did this in 70 AD and destroyed Jerusalem by Rome and destroyed the temple. We have that benefit. But let's also remember that makes us now that much more accountable before God. I've heard a lot of people say, oh, it's great to be able to live under the New Testament. I say, oh, I wholeheartedly agree. But do you also realize it makes you that much more accountable before God? Because now we've seen God fulfill his word through his son, Jesus Christ. We know God's word is true because Christ is risen, risen indeed. I don't object to us taking one day a year to recognize Resurrection Sunday, but there's also a sense where we should be praising the Lord for the Resurrection every day. We should be celebrating Christmas and Easter every day. Christ came into this world. Christ was crucified and raised up for us. We should always be mindful and thankful of that. But we see God's Word is true. And that's why he's giving us these specifics. Now, even though God didn't give Ezekiel the specific date when Jerusalem was going to be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, even though Jesus didn't give the specific date to his disciples when Rome was going to destroy Jerusalem, they both made it clear, this day is coming. And once again, God's Word is sufficient. Our Reformed and Puritan church fathers made that clear when we're looking at scripture. God's word is sufficient for what we need to know. What we need to know about God, what we need to know about his son Jesus Christ, what we need to know about salvation, and we should be content in that. We should be happy with that. God knows what we need to know. Adam and Eve knew what they needed to know. Don't eat of that tree. That's what they need to know for life. Because once again, God has always been testing us as a race. Do you take me at my word? So God gives us enough information, first of all, that we have reason to believe him. We have reason to live for him. God's word is sufficient for that. But he doesn't tell us everything. Because we can't have a relationship with God unless we trust him. And unless we take him at his word. So God has been teaching us as a human race throughout all history, trust me and take me at my word. That doesn't mean he's given us blind faith. In fact, I was talking before about how I can get angry about things. One of the things I get angry about is when people say, you Christians have a blind faith. I hate that phrase. Our faith is not a blind faith. We don't just simply believe because we believe. God has given us reason to believe. He's given us every reason to believe. He's given us every sufficient reason to take Him at His word. What more does he have to do than to send his son Jesus Christ into this world to be crucified and raised up for us? What more does God have to do to prove himself to us? We should take him at his word. And this has been our problem throughout history. We don't take God at his word, even though he has sufficiently explained to us what we need to know for life and to worship him and serve him. So yes, even though God is not giving the specific date, He is saying a specific date is coming. Same thing with Jesus. He doesn't give the specific date for the destruction of Jerusalem, but He says it's coming. Once again, so that we grow in our faith, and we take God at His Word, and we take His Word seriously, we take it to heart. That's the other element, that's the other deeper dimension here. You know, it's not only to intellectually believe what God is saying, it's also to let what God is saying change your heart, and bring you to faith and repentance. and to truly trust Him and to love Him, to know how loving and caring and compassionate He is, how righteous He is, how holy He is, who He is. Take that to heart. Don't just know that up here in your head. Yeah, once again, the old saying, head knowledge and heart knowledge. Let this knowledge change your heart, change your life, so that you do worship Him now and you trust Him now with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Once again, God has given you every reason to worship Him, to trust Him, to obey Him, to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then also to touch upon, this applies to us as Christians as well, and then in terms of the ultimate return of Christ, and the ultimate day of judgment when Christ returns and brings an end to human history of this sinful dying world. And he creates a new heaven and a new earth. And I think there are a lot of dimensions that we're not going to go down that rabbit trail tonight about the new dimensions or the dimensions and all the aspects of a new heaven and new earth. Suffice it to say for tonight, Jesus made it very clear in all his teachings, this age is coming to an end. Yeah, Jerusalem was coming to an end, but then the entire human race, all the other nations, and their sovereign existence as nations is also coming to an end where Christ reigns and rules over all the nations and establishes his authority over all men. And every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ is Lord. It's not just the believers in Jesus who are going to bow down and confess Jesus is Lord. Every tongue, every creature in heaven and on earth every generation, every age, every tongue and tribe and nation, every race and religion, male, female, young, old, black and white, everyone is going to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. That's all coming to this culmination. There is a last day. There is a day of judgment coming. And once again, when we look at this, what God was saying to Ezekiel, to Jerusalem in his day, when we look to what Christ was saying to the people of Israel in Jerusalem in their day, how much more so do we need to take it to heart, the last day, that date certain, when Christ comes to judge the living and the dead. And as we were saying, when you look at these parallels, what's said here in Ezekiel, it's the same thing that Jesus was saying to Jerusalem, And it's the same thing that the apostles and what Jesus says to us in the book of Revelation about the last days for all of the human race. Here God is specifically speaking in history to the people of Israel in their day and their age. That's the prime understanding of this text. Some people say, oh no, this is talking about the future coming of Christ. No. The prime meaning of this text, this is what God was saying to Jerusalem in his day. This is what Jesus was saying to Jerusalem in his day. Now, yes, we clean from that and we learn from that and we apply that to the last day where Christ is returning. But first and foremost, this message was to the people of Jerusalem in their day. And then we should take it to heart what Jesus has said to us about the last day for all the nations when he judges the living and the dead. Before we go any further, I think we're all up to speed now from last week, but any thoughts or comments or questions about that? Yeah, Angela. I don't know the exact scripture, but in the passages that we just read, when he says, the seller shall not return to that which is sold, it's kind of the same language to the way he's speaking about how people are going to be working in the field, and it's just going to be any other day, and no man's going to know the hour, but it's going to come. You're jumping ahead, but it's a good jumping ahead. So let's turn to that text. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 24. Because yeah, there's nothing wrong with jumping ahead, because if you brought it up, if the Spirit put that on your heart to bring that up, let's not argue with God here. Let's go right to it. Matthew chapter 24, verses 36 through 44. In fact, Angela, would you read that for us? Because you're right, it's dead on parallel. And once again, now this is Jesus speaking to the people of Jerusalem sometime around 30 AD. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark. and knew not until the flood came and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Then shall two be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. And we can see that here. People are going to be going about doing their day-to-day business, the buyer and the seller. We mentioned last week, too, that when we read this text here in Ezekiel 7, it is really written in a poetic literary style. We see certain stanzas, certain metaphors and descriptions, things that kind of sum up what's going on in people's day-to-day lives. And so we see here this illustration of the buyer, the seller. which refers to our day-to-day business, our day-to-day economy. And then we see the same type of illustration then being given by Jesus there in Matthew. And once again, I think those texts, I guess it's called the Mount Olivet Discourse, where Jesus is talking to his disciples and to the people of Israel right before his crucifixion and his resurrection, and he's trying to prepare them for the future kingdom. We see a transition there. We see that Jesus is using the illustration of the coming destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, to also explain to them, once again, then His coming for all the nations and to judge all the nations. So, once again, we see this parallel here. But yes, the same idea. People are so hard-hearted to God, they're comfortable and complacent in their sin and their misery, and they're not turning to God. They think they're God in themselves and they can run and control their own lives. And there's a day of reckoning coming. where God is gonna shake them up and God's gonna say, you're not God, you're not in control in your lives. Even though you're running about and doing your business and taking care of your family and doing your job and buying and selling and doing this and doing that, you're not gonna be in control on the day of judgment. You're gonna have to bow down before the Lord Jesus Christ and know that he is God. That's one of the things God is saying here. You think you're God running your lives, going about doing your buying and your selling and your day-to-day business, and you think life is about you and who you are, what you're doing? You're gonna find out that I'm God. You're living your life totally outside of who I am. You're ignoring my word. You're ignoring my truth. You're indulging your own selfish pursuits. You're seeking your own gain and glory. You're not worshiping me as God. You're going to find out I'm God. You're going to find out you're not in control of your life. So, excellent jump ahead. But I do want to back up a little, though, because, yeah, behold the day. Let's pick up there in verse 10. Behold the day. Behold, it has come. Doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed. Pride has budded. Once again, this is poetic language. Once again, the rod. Rod is always a symbol, an emblem of discipline. Yeah, that's how parents used to discipline their children. You know, the old saying. Spare the rod, spoil the child. They would take a whipping stick and smack your kid on the butt. I like to say the good old days. But there's this point here that this is God going to now discipline the people. And why is the rod now coming? Why is it now the full time to use the rod? That's the significance of what's being said here. Why is this doom coming on Jerusalem? Why has it now come to a head and come to fruition here? That's what he's saying here, that the rod has blossomed. It's come to the full time when God has to now exercise his judgment and his wrath here. He says, why? Because pride has budded. Once again, we're using these illustrations from agriculture and horticulture to help us understand we grow in our sin. And we, quote, unquote, blossom in our sin. And then God's wrath also blossoms and comes into full play. And he hits the nail right on the head here. At the heart of all this is your pride, is your arrogance. You think you're God. It's not just that you're offering up prayers to Asheroth and Baal and all the authors in the high places and your idolatry, because what's at the heart of that? You're creating God in your image. That's pride. That's you saying, I know better than God. I know how to worship God better than how God tells me to worship him. I have a better idea about who God is than God does. Do we understand how arrogant? Sometimes I think we look at the Old Testament idolatry and we just think of it in this intellectual sense of, oh, how foolish that was. Because obviously a carved stone or a carved piece of wood, it has no power in it. So these people were just superstitious and foolish. And that's what God is upset about. No. What God is upset about is you think you know who God is. And you're creating God to serve you with the God you want, which ultimately means you're making yourself God. When people were making statues and temples to Zeus and to Diana, Athena, Venus, you know, Jupiter, you know, whatever Greek or Roman name you want to use. I forget which now, which one's the Romans, which one's the Greeks. You know, when they came up with all these names and all these gods with Baal and Asherah, they were really making themselves God. And look how they humanized the gods. This is why God says they exchanged the truth for the lie. They serve the creature rather than the creator. They make things in the image of creatures, because that's what they knew. That's what they controlled. There was a reason why people made idols out of the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, because those were things they controlled, and they knew they had dominion over. At the heart of all this pagan idolatry in the Old Testament, it wasn't just that they were superstitious people who believed there was some voodoo magic in statues or carvings. What was so sinful was they thought they were God because they were creating God in their image and a God that they could control, a God that could serve them. instead of a God who was and is to be worshipped and glorified and served and submitted to. They were trying to make God subject to them. That's pride. That's pride. There's a difference between pride and ego. Ego just means you think your stink doesn't stink. Look how great I am. That's your ego. Pride is, not only do I have an ego and think my stink doesn't stink, I think I know better than God. I'm making myself God. Because this applies to the person, too, who sits there and doesn't go around and say, oh, everybody loves me. This goes to the person who sits there and says, nobody loves me. That's just as prideful. That's just as arrogant. It's just as prideful and arrogant to say nobody loves me as it is to say everybody loves me. Because you're making yourself God. You're making yourself the center of attention. You're making life about you and who you are and what your circumstances are. You're trying to control your life. You're trying to say to God what your life should be about. It's pride. Pride is saying, I'm God and God isn't, and I know better than God, and God should be making me happy. This is why the health and wealth and name it and claim it kind of theology that you see in our culture today is so blasphemous, because it's people saying, God, you have to make me happy. As opposed to saying, I need to worship and serve God, and I need to know and understand who this God is. See, at the heart of all this sin, the reason why he's putting this to an end is he's saying, I'm putting an end to their pride. Because when we make ourselves God, we all come to the cruel realization we're not God, and then we're dead. then life is futile, then life is frustrating, then life is depressing, and life is deadly. If life has no meaning, this is what the author of Ecclesiastes was getting at, it's all vanity, vanity, vanity. If I'm just living for myself, and trying to find my meaning in life through the wealth and the power and all the things of this world, it's all vanity. And that's nothing. It's empty, I'm dead. That's why the author of Ecclesiastes says, all I can do, worship God, know God and fear God. Because that's the only place where you're gonna find life, the creator of life, the giver of life. The Lord God Almighty. If you're trying to live your life outside of God and make yourself God, you're killing yourself. You're killing yourself. So this is why God is putting an end to the evil, because these people were destroying their lives. They were destroying the life God gave them with their pride. And that's why I said when you keep then going on and reading, violence has risen up into the rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, none of their multitude, none of them, nor shall there be wailing for them. The time has come, the days draw near. When you live such a prideful, arrogant life, you bring about your own destruction. And you bring about, in all honesty, the hatred and the enmity of others. I think this is chilling for us to read when we look at our culture today and just look how prideful our culture is. When we see all that divides our country today, whether it be economically or politically or racially or socially, can we not point to people's pride and think, hey, life is about me? Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. God matters. You're not worshiping God. This is why you have people killing each other in the streets. Because you know what? Nobody likes someone else saying life is about them when you think life is about you. Natural consequences that for people to kill each other and shed blood I'm not gonna let you make life about you. No life is about me So I'm gonna destroy you and kill you before you destroy and kill me We have over 6,000 years of history proving that very point And all goes back to Cain and Abel and Oh, this is about who Abel is? No, life is about who I am as Cain. Who does that Abel guy think he is? I'm taking him out. It's Cain's pride. Pride leads to violence. When you make life about you, anything that's a threat to that, you're going to destroy. This is how deadly the sin of pride is. That's why pride has been called the deadliest sin. it leads to bloodshed and violence. And then God is saying, I have to put an end to that. And the only way I can put an end to that violence is violently, forcefully, powerfully, overwhelmingly. So, yes, Ken, you had your hand up. I actually heard today in, it was actually a political podcast, but they were talking about how our culture and our country in particular has turned pride into one of the greatest attributes around to push out. You should be proud of yourself. You should be proud of gay pride, white pride, black pride, whatever. You need to be proud of yourself. You need to push yourself up more. And it's being lauded as one of the greatest things you could do. It just shows that the degradation of our culture is so rotted. Right. And it proves the point. Those who seek to gain their life lose their life. Yeah, finding pride in yourself. And don't get me wrong, this doesn't give us justice to hate someone else, to say, oh, well those people are just prideful and arrogant, so let's just hate them and discriminate them. No, now you're being prideful. No, the world needs Christ. Young black men need the Lord Jesus Christ. Police officers need the Lord Jesus Christ. Men need the Lord Jesus Christ. Women need the Lord Jesus Christ. People who are confused whether they're a man or a woman need the Lord Jesus Christ. They have to die to themselves. They have to die to their pride to know that they were created in the image of God. that they were created to glorify God. They were created to worship and serve God, to know God's love, his blessing, his goodness, who he is, his righteousness, his holiness. You can only know life by being holy like God is holy. God, when he was telling us to be holy as he is holy, it's so that we could know who he is. and know all of his goodness, know all of his love, and have that change our lives. Now don't get me wrong, we can hear that verse, and God said it to the people of Israel, Peter reminds us of that as the church in his epistles, be holy as he is holy. I think sometimes we tend to look at that just strictly in the moralistic sense, oh, I better live a clean life. Now that's true, but it goes much deeper than that. You should be holy so you're like God and you can know His power, His presence, who He is and what He's about. And you can be like Him and know all of His goodness, know all of His blessing. And you can glorify Him and worship Him and carry out the purpose He had for you and carry out His will so that you can know life and know life abundantly. It's not just about being good and moral. Don't get me wrong. We need to be good and moral. I'm not taking away from that. But to understand the motivation behind being good and moral. It's about knowing who God is. And seeing God at work in you and blessing you. And you're glorifying Him, because that's why He created you. He created you to make Him known, to make His truth known, His love known, His righteousness known, every aspect of Him known. That's where life is found. Life is found in the Creator and in His goodness. So when we get prideful and we make ourselves God, that's the most unholy thing you can do. And you're right, we call evil good now. Oh, it's good to be prideful. Where does that ever end? Oh, I take pride in being a Jew. Well, the problem there is the Germans took pride in being Nazis. See the problem? I'm not justifying what the Nazis did, but I'm not justifying what the Jews did either. If you're making pride, you're a god, you're making yourself god and making life about who you are, that's going to result in bloodshed and hatred and violence. and neither one of you are worshiping and serving God, and neither one of you are glorifying God, and you're destroying yourselves. We have to see everything in light of who God is, not in light of who we are and how we relate with one another. The only way we can really know how to relate with one another and deal with one another is to first understand who we are with God. This is why Jesus says, you love one another as I have so loved you. The reason we love each other is because Christ has so loved us and we're showing Christ to one another. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. If we make our relationships as Christians just based on who we are and our own personal attitudes and our own personal philosophies on life, there's gonna be nothing but division and discord and hate. But if we recognize, wait a minute, I have nothing to be prideful about. I'm just a terrible, wretched sinner saved only by grace, by Jesus being loving and forgiving of me. and because he's been loving and forgiving of me, I gotta be loving and forgiving to all my brothers and sisters at Grace Reformed Baptist Church, because of who he is and what he's done. That's the only way I can truly love any of you, is if I'm taking to heart who Christ is and how Christ has so loved me. Because otherwise, all you guys get on my nerves. And then I know how much I get on your nerves. No, it comes down to who Christ is. This is why so many marriages fail. People in the marriage, what's in it for them? Oh, this is how this person makes me feel. Oh, and this is how this person makes me feel. And Christ isn't even in the picture. That marriage is headed for divorce, because there's coming a time when that person isn't going to make you feel that way. Because there's romance, and then there's real life. And as soon as real life hits, romance goes right out the window. And I'm seeing all the married couples nodding their heads. The only reason Jill and I have been married for 22 years, we'll both tell you, is Jesus Christ. Otherwise, I think we would have been divorced in the first couple of years. The only reason we have William is because of Jesus Christ. And you know what? We're both still learning what it is to love one another in Christ. We still have not yet reached perfection. But we'll be the first ones to tell you, we can't do it without Christ. We can't do it without knowing how Christ has loved us. Because the only thing that can really truly motivate us to keep our marriage together is that the marriage was there to glorify Christ and to show the love Christ has for the church. So if we're married, it's about us showing Christ to one another. And that's the only thing that will keep us together. We can only forgive each other because Christ has so forgiven us. But that's what we're really seeing going on here. The people of Israel have become so prideful, so arrogant. They thought their life was just their life. They could just go about and do whatever they wanted. They didn't need God in their lives, but they were destroying their lives. They weren't living at peace with the other nations around them. We'll get into more of this detail here. We're gonna find out who the Babylonians are. We're gonna find out who the Egyptians were. We're gonna find out who the Philistines were. We're gonna find out about these other nations and the Assyrians. God wasn't just dealing with, yes, he made a covenant relationship with Israel, but that was to show the other nations who God was and how God loves the people. They were meant there to glorify God. They had a covenant relationship with God to glorify God, so the other nations could see who God is and how good and gracious and loving God was. When they rejected God, when they weren't worshipping God, and they were just worshipping themselves, they became worse than all the other nations. And the other nation says, who is this Israel to get in our way? We're taking them out. we're taking them out, because of their pride. Now that's not to justify Nebuchadnezzar. No, he's still prideful, and he's still wicked, and he's still conquering a people. And that's what we're gonna read on further here in chapter seven, but God's making it very clear. I'm using those sinful, wicked people to humble you in your pride. You have to deal with your pride. Don't be sitting there saying, well, I'm not as bad and sinful as these other people. No, you got to deal with your sin. Because as we do read on, we find out God is also bringing his judgment on these other nations as well. He'll deal with them. He'll deal with their pride. But we're responsible for our sin and for our pride. And if we understand the wrath of God, and we realize how prideful and violent and self-destructive we've become, and that God is very serious about bringing an end to our wickedness and our evil and our pride and our violence. That, once again, as I said, better change our hearts where we humbly, humbly, humbly go before the Lord and seek Him in faith and in repentance. Because God's word is true. You better know that God is God. Our problem is, as we're living our day-to-day lives, we think we're God. We get mad at everyone else because they're not making us happy, they're not doing what we want, and that's all selfish pride. And we're miserable in our lives, and we hate everyone, and we hate ourselves. Instead of surrendering to God and saying, God, how can I worship you today? How can I glorify you today? How can I show your love today? How can I show your truth today? How can I show your righteousness today so that I can know your truth, your love, your righteousness, so I can know who you are and what you're doing? That's why Christ came to this world, so that we could have eternal life, so that we could know who God is, and we could glorify him and worship him. So, let's close there for tonight, but any other closing thoughts, or yeah, Ken. Just real quick, what you were saying about God's gonna be taking Nebuchadnezzar's task, reminding me of, in Isaiah chapter 10, I'll just read five to seven. Yeah. It was, woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation, that's the northern 10 tribes, and I will give him the charge to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread him down like a mire in the street. Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off few nations. God is using Assyria to punish northern Israel, and yet he's still gonna punish Assyria for their actions because their heart was meant to be wicked. And this historically ties in because Jerusalem and Judah should have learned from what God did with Assyria to the northern 10 tribes. And once again we see that same descriptive language. These people think everything is okay, I can do what I wanna do, but they don't know God. And so God sent the Assyrians to overtake and destroy the 10 northern tribes of Israel. No, they didn't all get on boats and go out to the Southwest like the Mormons want you to believe. As the Book of Mormon tells us. The Book of Mormon tells us the 10 lost tribes of Israel all got on boats and they all came to America and settled out West. And they started a whole new civilization out there. Yeah, yeah. So, no. Whether you're a Christian or not, the history books are clear. Assyria destroyed the 10 northern tribes of Israel and assimilated them into their race because they were so wicked. And here Jerusalem and Judah is ignoring that, saying, oh, God's not going to bring judgment on us. We can still live like the way we want to live. I think that's very dangerous for us, especially in our culture. Because I think, in all honesty, the Christian in America today, we're way too comfortable and complacent. And we think, oh, we're God. We even sometimes, like I said, I don't like it when people say, America is a Christian nation. No. America is a nation that's been influenced by Christianity and has been blessed by Christianity. I agree with that. But I sometimes think people think, oh, no, we're God's people, so God will never bring anything harm upon us. It's the same arrogance and mentality that people of Israel had. And they really were God's people. Yeah. Yeah. So like I said, these are lessons for us to learn today. And like I said, this was all part of God's eternal counsel and his progressive revelation. We should have learned from Assyria taking over the northern 10 tribes. We should have learned from Nebuchadnezzar destroying Jerusalem in 586 BC. We should have learned from Rome destroying Jerusalem in 70 AD. So the more reason why we better repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because he's coming on a day certain. to judge the living and the dead, and he's gonna put an end to all the evil in this world. And people are gonna be going about, like we read there, like in the days of Noah, going about, oh, God's never gonna punish us. First of all, even if there is a God, I don't think that God would ever punish. He takes into account we're just human. He knows us. It's arrogance either way. Whether you sit there and say, there is no God up there who's gonna judge you. And there were people who said, well, I believe there is a God, but I don't like the fact that God is gonna bring judgment, so I'm gonna reject it. And then the people who also then just say, oh, God would never do that. The days of Noah. Days of Jerusalem in 586 BC, Days of Jerusalem 70 AD. The Jewish leadership were saying to Jesus, you're not Messiah, you don't know Abraham, we're the children of Abraham, God will never judge us like that. Woe to you Pharisees. And we live in a culture today, and like I said, even sadly in some churches, oh God isn't like that anymore. You know, God would never bring about judgment like that, no. In the end, we all get saved. Because he understands we're only human. That's just as blasphemous as the atheist who said, there is no God, and this is hell right now, and then we all die, and that's it. Yeah. So it's not like God hasn't warned us. We need to take God at his word. We need to repent and believe and ask Him to be merciful to us. We need to ask Him, humble us, humble us, humble us. We are so prideful. We are so self-consuming. And as Ken was pointing out before, we live in a culture that just seems to feed that pride and that arrogance and make it all about our pride and our arrogance. I have to be who I am. Hear me roar. You know, I am woman, hear me roar. Helen Reddy, yeah, great hit back in the 70s. It was the hymn of the feminist movement. I am woman, hear me roar. OK. And now a generation, two generations later, we have people saying, I'm whatever I feel like being, hear me roar. I don't know if I'm a woman. Yeah, I'm not. I'm this. I'm that. I'm whatever. Hear me roar. Every knee is going to bow. Every tongue is going to confess. Regardless of who you think you are, you're going to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. Yeah. Lion of Judah. And remember, as C.S. Lewis tells us, remember, he's still a lion. I love that line about Aslan. He's still a lion. Yeah, kids, I know you love him. I know you love Aslan. He saved you guys. But remember, he's still a lion. So why don't we close in prayers? Paul, would you close us in prayer tonight?