We're going to be back with Ezekiel again this morning after we've had two weeks of vacation from Ezekiel, but he's still in the same place. Maybe I can get this microphone turned down a little bit. Do you notice it's a little bit loud for me this morning? When Mrs. Swenson sang, we could have had this one a little louder and we'll get this one down. I think that's down a little. Good. Okay. I don't like to hear myself. It's bad enough that you have to, but I don't like to. Ezekiel chapter 12. Now when we last left Ezekiel, he was in that helicopter ride that the Lord had given him. Picked him up by the hair and carted him off to the city of Jerusalem. And there he had seen the awful picture of the glory of God leaving the city of Jerusalem and the people of God. In chapters 8 through 11, by the way, if you have not yet gotten one of the introductory papers that we have on the book of Ezekiel, be sure that you pick one up. It's very important that you know something of the background of the book of Ezekiel. They're on the table out there in Anarthex. They're entitled Introduction to Ezekiel. Be sure and pick one of them up and read that very carefully. In chapters 8 through 11, Ezekiel was given a revelation of the fact that God's glory was going to be removed and his presence would be removed from among his people. In chapters 12 through 19, God is going to vindicate for us his reason for so doing. In chapter 12, we are going to see that God is going to deal with the throne. Those who are in places of public leadership in governments bear a special responsibility before God. And so God deals many times directly with the leadership of nations. And we're going to see here in chapter 12 that God is going to put his hand upon Zedekiah. Zedekiah was the king who had been placed on the throne of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar when Jehoiakim and Ezekiel and the numbers with him had been carried off captive to the land of Babylon. Jehoiachin is still the king, but he's a captive living in the land of Babylon, along with Ezekiel and the others. He, of course, is in special captivity. But back home in Jerusalem, Zedekiah is on the throne. And it was during the fifth year of Zedekiah's reign that Ezekiel began to prophesy. We are now in approximately the eighth or ninth year of Zedekiah's reign. which means he only has two years to go. For God only allowed this man 11 years of total reign before he came to the end of his career. And so that's this passage that's before us this morning. Our subject today, let me see, I left my bulletin and I didn't happen to write the title down, but it simply is moving on with God or on the move with God. And as we look into the 12th chapter, Ezekiel is about to move. He's moving for God. You know, it's a wonderful thing to be moving for God and to be moving with God. All through the Old and New Testament, we find that God is constantly moving people into places of service. As we look through the Old Testament, we find that God took Abraham and moved him out of the land of the Ur of Chaldees and over into the land of Palestine, there to embark on a great ministry and work for God. We find that God put his hand one day on a man named Jonah. And he said, Jonah, I want you to leave the land of Palestine and I want you to go off with me to the land of Nineveh and preach against that great city. And so Jonah was asked to move that God might use him there. Ezekiel was moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to live there among the captives. Daniel was moved to Babylon from the land of Israel. Nehemiah moved from Shushan to the city of Jerusalem. Philip in the New Testament was preaching in Samaria with a great revival. And God said, Philip, go out into the desert because I have a man there that needs to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul was having a tremendous ministry in the city of Antioch. And God said, Paul, I want you and Barnabas to move out. or I have other people to hear the word of God. Yes, God's desire is that every believer should be constantly on the move for God. God wants to move in your life and God wants to move you. The tragedy of today is that there are many, many Christians who, when the call comes to move for God, I don't mean to move physically from one city to another, but to move into a place of service that the answer comes back from the believer, I'm not ready to move. I will not be moved. You know, many people, when they sing that little chorus, I shall not be, I shall not be moved, they believe that it means that God expects us as believers to just sit like a lump on the log and do our own thing. That's not what it's talking about at all, of course, in the song. It means that we shouldn't be moved from the place of righteousness into the course of sin. But, dear Christian, God wants every believer to be active in a moving ministry for God. God wants to constantly move you into places of service for Him. And there are many believers today who have said, God, don't bother me. I don't want to be moved. It's too inconvenient for me. And so there are ministries and there are jobs that are not being done. There are many people, I'm sure that God wants them to do a ministry, perhaps to teach a Sunday school class. Perhaps to get into some other kind of a ministry that God really puts his hand on them for. But they have said, no Lord, not me. I don't want to be that involved. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want to be inconvenienced. There are too many things that I want to be free to do. And so I don't want you to put your hands on me. Now, Christians, if we know the honest truth, this is a condition of many of God's people are in today. And I believe there's a possibility that some of us here in the room this morning need to ask ourselves the question, am I a Christian who is ready and willing to go and to be moved according to the will of God? Or am I a believer that only wants to do that which is convenient for me? Now, what's the story before us here this morning? The story before us here this morning is that it's moving day. Ezekiel is asked of God to move. In the third verse it says, therefore, son of man, prepare thy baggage for removing. Now, I don't know about you, but if there's anything that I hate to do, I hate to move. You know, moving is a chore. It means that you have to get all of your things together, you have to put them in boxes, you have to get out your furniture, and you have to haul, and push, and shove, and lift, and then you get all of your junk type picked up, and the trailer or the truck comes, and you can't get it all in, and you have to make trips, or you have to throw it away, and it's a chore. And you know, what I love to do is just find a place and stay there the rest of my life. Wouldn't you like that? Surrounded by all of my junk. That is contentment. But unfortunately, in my life, I've had to move, it seems, every four or five years. It isn't because of the creditors. It's just that the Lord seems to move me about from place to place. And even when I lived in Santa Rosa, we were always moving from one place to another. Houses were rented or the parsonage was turned into Sunday school rooms. Move, move, move. I don't like moving. I like to stay put. But you know, if God tells you to move, we ought to be willing to. Isn't that right? Now, I don't think Ezekiel is any different than I am or than you are. I don't think Ezekiel liked moving and his wife. I don't think they relished it any more than we relish it today. And especially to move for no purpose that they could see in mind. The Lord said, Ezekiel, I want you to move, and I want you to move just because I want you to. Well, you know, the thing that I like about Ezekiel is the fact that every time we see this man, he's always giving to us a tremendous example. You know, in verse 3, God says, Ezekiel, I want you to move. And in verse 7, Ezekiel said, and I did as the Lord commanded me. I moved. When God said move, Ezekiel moved. People came by, Ezekiel, where are you moving to? Don't know. Ezekiel, why are you moving? I don't know. There's Ezekiel. Why are you moving Ezekiel? Because God told me to move. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is when we as believers get so in tune with God and so caught up in the things of God that when God opens up a door and says move into that door that we are willing to drop our desires, to drop our preferences, that we are willing to disturb our lives and our interests and our concerns and to move into the ministries that God has for us. I wonder how many Christians today have said no when God has said move. Oh, may God help us this morning to look at this man Ezekiel and to be willing and ready to turn to the Lord and say as Ezekiel did, Lord, if you want me to move, if you give me a ministry, oh God, I'll take that ministry. I'll be what you want me to be. Now it is very important that Ezekiel have this ministry. Why? Because verse 2 tells us that Ezekiel is ministering to a world of people who are spiritually dead, who are spiritually rebellious, who are blind and deaf, and who cannot understand the things of God. In other words, Ezekiel is in the midst of a group of people who are lost. Now you know verse two there, verse one and two it says, the word of the Lord came also unto me saying, and there in verses one and two we have our first point, the spiritual condition of lost men. And you notice where Ezekiel was, he was in the midst of lost men. You know there's a great movement today on the part of some Christians to try to get all of the Christians to withdraw from society. There are many Christians today who feel that God is moving them to separate into Christian communities. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be more unscriptural. You know, the Bible reveals to us that it is God's program and God's design to place His people strategically in the midst of great needs. You know that? Did you ever read the parable of the sower in the New Testament? The first parable was the sower who sowed the gospel seeds and people were saved. But the second parable is the sower who was the Lord and he went out and he sowed the believers out in the world among the tares. And the command and the message of the parable is this, that God wants his people to be willing to move out among the lost. in order that they might minister to those who are in great need. Ezekiel loved the Lord. Ezekiel believed in God, but he was in the midst of a people who were rebellious. Notice what it says. Son of man, you're dwelling in the midst of a rebellious house. People who have eyes to see, but don't see. People who have ears to hear, but they don't hear. For they are a rebellious house. But he doesn't say, Ezekiel, move away. Oh, no. He said, Ezekiel, I want you to minister to these people. And dear Christian friends, this morning, there's a world of men and women who were lost in sin. Listen, these people among whom Ezekiel lived, they didn't know they were lost. They were Israelites. They were Jews. They were the descendants of Abraham. They thought they were the chosen people of God. They didn't realize that you're not born to salvation. They didn't understand that they were spiritually dead, that they were spiritually blind, that they were spiritually deaf. You know, when God calls you to move, it doesn't always mean that you're going to have a successfully wonderful receptive audience to listen to you. You know, here God calls Ezekiel to go out and preach, and he tells him before he begins to preach, he said, now the folks you're going to preach to are dead, blind, and deaf. You know, that's a pretty tough group to minister to, don't you think so? Thank the Lord you folks are saved. I'm so glad that the Lord has given me a group of people that are alive and that can see and can hear to talk to. You know, it'd be depressing for me to come out here morning after morning and speak to people who were spiritually dead, blind, and deaf. But dear friends, that is the condition of millions of people in the world today. It is the condition of millions of people within the borders of our own country. Do you realize this morning that there are millions of Americans who think they are Christians just because they are born in a Christian nation? There are millions of your countrymen today who believe that they are Christians because they belong to a church or because they have been baptized. They are in just as much darkness and blindness as these religious Jews here. These Jews who believe that they were secure because they were Jews. Salvation and forgiveness of sins does not come because of your birth or because of any work that you can do. But salvation comes to men who are lost and blind and dead in sin. when the gospel of Jesus Christ presented through this word penetrates that blind and deaf condition. And God needs this morning believers who are willing to answer the call of God and who are willing to move with God into a world like that. Yes, dear Christian, this morning God wants to move you out into a world of needy people. Just as God moved Ezekiel into the lost people of Israel, God wants to move you this morning out into the lost people that are in the United States of America. Lost people in your neighborhood. People who don't even know they're lost. Do you know that I have had the privilege of leading numbers of people to Jesus Christ as their Savior? Many people have responded to the preaching of the Word of God here in our church. There are hundreds that have come to know Christ as their Savior and how we praise God for every one of them. And do you know that most of the people that I've led to Jesus Christ have always believed in God? I have led very few atheists to Christ. I've had the joy of leading one or two. There's a young man from our church and seminary today who was an atheist when he first came. And after a year of talking with him and dealing with him on many occasions in my office, there was that night when he knelt in prayer right there in the office and he trusted Jesus Christ as his savior. And today he's in Dallas Theological Seminary. And God does save the atheists, but most of the people that we win to Christ are people who have always believed in God. They are people who always believed in Jesus Christ, but they never realized that in order to be a Christian, you have to accept him as your personal savior. They didn't realize that they were lost, that they were dead, and that they needed to be born again. They didn't understand that salvation comes when you, as a sinner, confess your sin and ask Jesus Christ, who is the eternal God, to come into your heart and life and be your Savior. And it is not baptism, it is not church membership, it is not good works, it is not anything that you can do that brings salvation to your soul, but it is faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and that alone that makes men and women new creatures in Christ Jesus. And there's a world of people today that believe in God. There's a world of people that believe in Jesus Christ that are lost. Just as there was a world like that in which Ezekiel lived. And so God says, Ezekiel, I want you to move. And why did God want Ezekiel to move? Because he wanted Ezekiel to be a witness to the people among whom he lived. And so God said, Ezekiel, I want you to get their attention. He said, I want you to attract their attention to me and to my message by your life and your actions. Now, God's not going to ask you to do the same thing that he asked Ezekiel to do here. But you see, by this time, the word had gone out. You know, Ezekiel's acting kind of strange. He has been giving us some of the weirdest messages. He has been having some of the strangest experiences. Well, you know, the other day he told us that God picked him up by the hair and called him off to Jerusalem. Can you believe that? And, you know, well, I remember the other day he was down there in the marketplace cutting his hair up and shaving off his head, his hair and his whiskers and making a bonfire out of his hair and throwing it up in the wind. Why? He's just been acting strange. and he can't talk anymore. The only time he can talk is when God loosens his tongue so that he can say something. And so the word had gone out. Say, you better watch Ezekiel. I wonder what he's going to do next. And so this morning they walked by and somebody walked by. Oh, I better check in on all Ezekiel before I go off to work this morning and see what he's doing. He looks in there and there's Ezekiel and he's in the house and he's really working around and he's collecting all of his stuff and he's putting it in boxes and bags and he's getting all ready to move. And somebody goes in the door and says, Ezekiel, what you doing? And his wife says, well, can't you see? We're moving. Well, where are you moving, Mrs. Ezekiel? Oh, I don't know. Ezekiel hasn't told me. When are you going to move? I don't know. Oh, boy. The word goes out. Hey, get down to Ezekiel's house. He's acting funny again. Wonder what he's going to do this time. And so they go down and they watch it all day long. Ezekiel's busy. He's getting stuff ready, getting all packed up. Ezekiel, do you have a new house picked out yet? No, nothing yet. His wife says, no, we don't have anything yet. He can't talk. And so his wife says, they say, well, what are you going to do? Well, we'll just have to wait and see. And so all day long, and so my other people gather around outside. and they're watching. And pretty soon, Ezekiel, the God says, now I want you to do all this in their sight, verse four, for removing, get everything ready to move, but I don't want you to move till night comes. And then I want you to go out at nighttime with your head covered so that you won't be able to see the ground. I want you to put a veil across your eyes so that you can't see the ground. And then I want you to act like you're sneaking away. I want you to sort of act like you're moving out at night so that the landlord can't catch you with the rent. And so they sit there and they watch. Ezekiel says, well, all right. Now the Lord says, oh, there's one other thing, Ezekiel. I don't want you to go out the door. I want you to dig through the wall and go out through the wall like that. Oh. Okay, so there they are. And in thy sight thou shalt bear it upon thy shoulders, cover thy face, and not see the ground. And so there they are. All day long he gets ready to work. He sits down, has a little something to eat. And then finally when it gets dark, he puts the bag over his shoulder and they say, look, he's gonna do something. I guess he's gonna come walking out the door. We'll see where he goes. And lo and behold, he starts digging and pulling the bricks out and makes a hole in the wall. I said, Ezekiel, what's the matter with you? There's a door, why don't you walk out the door? No, you have to go out through the wall. Ezekiel, you are something else. You are something else. What is going on here? What is happening? Why in the world is God asking this man to act like this? Well, he tells you right there in verse 8, because Ezekiel said, I did it. I did as I was commanded. In verse 7, I got the baggage by day. I got everything ready. When night came, I dug a hole in the wall with my hand, and then I snuck out through that hole, and I put it on my shoulder, and I just went right off. And the Lord said next morning, Ezekiel, Ezekiel said, yes, Lord. He said, did the people come and ask you what you were doing? Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, they did. He said, well, that's what I wanted, Ezekiel. I wanted them, I wanted you to get their attention. Because he said, Ezekiel, I have something that I want you to tell them. Now, dear friends, listen, God wants you to move for Him today because God wants you to live and walk and so conduct yourself in this world in which we live today that men and women will see something about you that is different. You see, when God is moving in the lives of believers, they are living in such a way that the world can't help but notice it. You know, it's a tragedy today that there are so many of God's people who are living for themselves and who are living in contradiction to God's call and God's will and God's commands for their life that there is absolutely no difference that can be detected between them and the world. You know what the Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5, 16? He said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. The Bible tells me that if I'm living according to the word of God and that if I'm moving in the circles that God wants me to move in, that I'm going to make an effect on the world for God. As I read through the New Testament, at the lives of the Apostle Paul, and at the life of Peter, and all of these saints of the Book of Acts, I find that when these people got up and were filled with the Spirit of God, and God was moving in their lives, that people were attracted to Jesus Christ in one way or another through their lives. And I find that the same God who ministered in the book of Acts is ministering in lives today, and He wants to minister in lives today, and God wants to move in us in such a way that the world notices something about us that's different. Now, Ezekiel's case, it was exaggerated, but no matter how exaggerated it was, they recognized something different about Ezekiel, didn't they? Now, I don't mean that God expects you to be eccentric, but dear Christians, I'm asking you this question. Is the world impressed with the fact that your life is different? Do your actions impress people with the fact that God is moving in your life? Thursday night I spent three hours in the home of a young couple who had come to church, who were interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ, who have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ at least as their savior by their profession. And you know why they came? Because they were moved by the difference that they saw in the life of one of the Christians in our church. It wasn't what they said, but it was the moving power of God that made their life different. that attracted these people to Jesus Christ. And dear Christians, listen to me. I believe that there are hundreds of Christians this morning that God wants to move in your life, but you said, no, Lord, it's too inconvenient. I don't want to move. I don't want to move. Oh, how we need to be like Ezekiel. And when God says, Ezekiel, move, Ezekiel says, all right, God, I'll move. Where do you want me to move? And oh, that God might make us that kind of Christians this morning, willing to move where God wants us to move and when God wants us to move. willing to let the world see that Jesus Christ is in us, and to see the change that he makes, willing to be different for his sake in order that men and women might be attracted to our Savior. And then after they had been attracted to come and talk to him, then he had something to say. God gave him a message. You know, Christians, in Philippians chapter 2, the apostle Paul says that we as believers are to be holding forth the word of truth in a crooked and perverse world. The world today is black. The world today is sinful. And it's becoming more sinful as the days go on and the days go by. We are living in a day today which is fraught with wickedness. We are publicly condoning wickedness that would never have been imagined a few years ago. Even to the point recently where the sheriff of San Francisco County has openly now declared that he has hired a known homosexual as a deputy sheriff. Listen to me, dear Christians. That shows a radical change in the moral concepts of America. changes like this. Oh, you say that's not very important. The Word of God speaks to you clearly about what that kind of sin is. And the Bible tells us because of that sin, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. And the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that when that sin becomes a prevailing sin in a society, it's because that society has turned its back on God in a wholesale way. And read Romans 1, and it'll lay it out for you plain and clear so that there's no misunderstanding. And when we as a nation begin to openly condone and accept these kind of things, it means that we are on dangerous ground before Almighty God. And you can stick your head in the sand and say, oh, that's not really that, it doesn't mean anything. And dear friend, you're not willing to face what God's word has to say and what history has revealed to us. God's word says that this is a course that men will take as they get further and further from me. Now listen, God wants us to be different. God wants us to hold a standard. And then God wants us to speak when the proper time comes. And there's great wickedness to be spoken out against. And God says we're in the midst of a crooked and perverse world. And God said it is my desire that every believer be so yielded to me that they will be light in the midst of a crooked and perverse world. And I want to ask you this question this morning. Has anybody ever come to you and said, you know, there's something about you that's different, I'd like to know what it is. What makes you so different? How come you have such peace? How come you have such joy? Why is it that you always seem to be able to look at things different than the rest of us? Have people come to you like that? I believe that if you are living the way God wants you to live, I believe that if you are moving the way God wants you to move, that these kind of things are going to happen to you. You see, Ezekiel didn't have to go out and say, hey, come over here, I want to tell you something. The people came to Ezekiel and said, Ezekiel, what's going on? What's going on? And so Ezekiel said, what's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. He said, God has been using me for an object lesson. He said, I want you to tell him something for me. I want you to tell him that I am your sign. Now he isn't talking about a zodiac sign there. He said, I'm an object lesson to you from God. I am your sign, verse 11. And as I have been doing, I've been acting like a captive. I've been digging through the wall. He said, I want you to know that God is just about to bring down the end on the city of Jerusalem. That Zedekiah the king is going to try to sneak out of the city. The Babylonian army is already beginning to lay siege, and Zedekiah is going to hold off, but he's going to find that it's going to fail, and he's going to try, eventually, to sneak out of the city. He's going to cover his head so that he'll look like an ordinary citizen, and he's going to try to get away. He's going to try to dig through the wall and escape into the night. But he said, it's not going to work. Nebuchadnezzar is going to catch him. And he said, when Nebuchadnezzar catches him, he said in verse 13, God's going to spread a net upon him, and he shall be taken in snare, and I'm going to bring him to the Babylon, to the land of the Chaldees, but he'll not see the land. He won't be able to see it, but he'll die here in Babylon. Jeremiah chapter 39, 1 Kings chapter 25, Jeremiah chapter 52. All three of these passages tell us that this is exactly what happened to Zedekiah. When you read the history of that day, you'll find that what Ezekiel said here came to pass absolutely without change. that the day came when the city began to fall. Zedekiah tried to save himself. He posed as an ordinary citizen. He sought to sneak out of the city. He got just so far out of the city, he was captured by Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers. They took him up before the king, and there at Riblah, his two sons were hauled up before him, and before his very eyes, his sons were slain. And then his eyes were put out, and he was hauled back a blind captive to the land of Babylon, never to see it, and he died there a short time later. What happened to the city? The city was totally laid to the ground. This temple was destroyed and razed. And the Jews were slaughtered like fish in a barrel. All of the things that Ezekiel said would come to pass were fulfilled to the letter. God said, Ezekiel, I have something else I want you to do. Ezekiel said, OK, Lord, what is it? This is verse 17 and 18. He said, I want you to eat your bread, and I want you to drink your water with trembling and shaking. And so Ezekiel did it. He got his bread out in his water, and he just stood there shaking. People came up and said, Ezekiel, what are you shaking about? He said, I'll tell you what I'm shaking about. He said, that's what you're going to be doing when God's judgment comes. That's what you're going to be doing when God's judgment falls. Now dear friend, God asks us to be a witness. God asks us to be willing to move out among the lost. He asks us to be willing to be different. He asks us to be willing to speak when the time comes. Do you notice here that God didn't let Ezekiel speak until the moment when God was ready for him. You know there are a lot of Christians who feel that God wants them to go around and speak to everybody they meet. and pounce on every soul that comes across their path. Nothing could be further from the truth. Colossians chapter two verse four says that God wants us to speak to the doors that he has opened. You can do more harm than good by speaking outside of the will of God to people. The thing that you need to do first of all is live a consistent life and then as God opens doors around your life to ask God to help you to speak properly to the ones to whom he opens the doors. Ezekiel didn't speak until they came and said, Ezekiel, what are you doing? And you know, then the Apostle Paul said, I want you to pray for me that God would open doors for me to speak to. And then I want you to pray that when he opens the doors, that he'll tell me what to say in each door. You know, there are a lot of Christians who've memorized a little spiel, and they try to use that same spiel on everybody they meet. What would happen to you if you died tonight? Oh, you're not ready to die? All right, let's do this, do that. And they talk to everybody they meet down the street. I don't believe that that's the way God wants us to get busy in personal work. I believe that God wants us to get busy in personal work by getting down on our knees and saying, God, I want you to use my life to attract people to Jesus Christ. And God, I want you to open doors. And then God, I want you to give me the message that you want me to give to each individual that I cross. He said, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. I've known people who have such a cut and dried approach that if somebody interrupts them in the middle, they have to go back to the beginning and start over again. Kind of like the salesman that comes to your door and says, how do you do? I've come to talk to you about a product. You interrupt him in the middle. And he says, okay, go ahead. And then he says, I can't do that. So he has to start back at the beginning. How do you do? And then off he goes again. God says, go in the world and move among them. And then God says, speak to the ones that I lay before you. And trust me and call upon me for the words to speak when the time comes. You know, it's a joy, it's a thrill to get involved in that kind of soul winning work for God. Did you know that? Because it's not you with your canned speech, but it's God who's opening doors and doing the work. And it's exciting to see what God does and how God deals differently with each one. You know, Jesus Christ dealt with numerous souls when he was here on earth, and he never dealt with one the same way. He always had a different approach for a different person. It's a marvelous thing to see how Jesus Christ didn't force open doors, but he just walked through doors as they opened up before him. And oh, what a thrilling thing it is to be involved in the business of being used of God to bring salvation into the hearts and lives of lost men and women, but to walk through the doors as God opens them and to give the message that God has for you to give at that particular time. What is going to be the reaction of these people to whom Ezekiel preaches? Well, the Lord came back to Ezekiel and said, Hey, Ezekiel, what is this proverb I've been hearing down there in the land? Oh, verse 22. Here it is, Lord. Why, some of the people, they listened to what I had to say, Lord, but they didn't believe me. Well, you know what they said, Lord? They said the days are prolonged and every vision fails. They said, Hey, Ezekiel, we've heard this stuff before. There have been other prophets. There's old Jeremiah. We remember when we were back there, he was always talking like this. Ezekiel, you're nothing but a hellfire damnation preacher. You're nothing but a big old prophet of gloom. Why everybody's been talking like this. Isaiah talked like this and Jeremiah talked like this. They're all talking like this. It never happens. Never happens. You don't scare us. You know, they were still doing that in the New Testament. 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter said, the scoffers will come in the last days. They'll say, where's the promise of his coming? You Christians, you've been talking about that for years and he still hasn't come. In the beginning, everything continues as it is. The world's getting better and we're not going to have any problems. Ah, you guys with gloom and doom, you just drive me nuts. Away with you. Away with you. There'll be a lot of people that you'll talk to that'll see your lie. that'll hear the word of God, and they'll shrug it off. It'll grieve your soul. It'll burden your heart. But that's the response you'll get. And then in verse 26, the Lord said, hey, they're saying something else, too. What's that? Oh, he said, this is what they're saying. They're saying the vision that he seeth is for many days to come. I believe it's probably, there's the other crowd that said, well, we believe that probably this is of God, but it isn't gonna happen to us. It's gonna be way out there in the future. Way down the line. That's for the next generation. That's for the next century. That's not for my life. Oh, yes, it is. God says, Ezekiel, it's going to happen now. It's true. that I've been merciful. It's true that I've waited. But he said, Ezekiel, I'm through. It's going to happen. And it did. It did. And it was terrible. It was awful. It was beyond anything that you or I can imagine. The cruelty and the wickedness of those barbaric hordes in those days is indescribable. And it all happened. And it was just a few months away. So it is that one of these days, every man and every woman who rejects God's message of salvation is going to feel the hand of God's judgment. It could be today. It could be today. Say, Pastor, I've got a lot of time. I've got plenty of opportunity. That's what these people said. There were some who said, won't happen at all. There were some who said, later on, later on. A few years, a number of years ago, several, about 20 years ago, I was in church one Sunday night and a man came forward to trust Christ as his savior. He was a young man about 25 years of age. He was a truck driver. And I was so glad to see him step forward that night in the church service. And I talked to him in the prayer room, and I said, Hank, you want to get saved, don't you? He said, I sure do. He said, I've decided that I want to be a Christian. I said, you know, that's really great. I said, let's just bow on our knees, and you confess Christ as your Savior. You see, the Bible says that you become a Christian when you, by faith, believe on Jesus Christ, God's Son, as your Savior. I read him that verse in Romans where it says, if you'll confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. He said, well, he said, I'm going to do that. But he said, I'm not going to do it this Sunday night. I just came tonight to tell you I'm going to do it. He said, I'm going to get saved next Sunday night. I said, Hank, you know, the time to get saved is right now. I said, you can't be sure you have next Sunday night, Hank. Oh, he said, I'll be here. I'll be here. I said, well, why would you put it off? He said, I'm going to go back to the bar where I've been hanging out with all the old buddies, and I want to go back one more time and tell them what I'm going to do. I said, I'm going to go back Tuesday night. I'm going to tell all the guys that I'm going to be down at the church. I'm going to become a Christian next Sunday. He meant it. He meant it with all his heart. I said, Hank, that's not the way to do it. I said, the way to do it is to get saved tonight and go to the bar and tell them what happened. Isn't that the way? I think Gaither wrote a song. Today I went back to the place where I used to go. Today I saw the same old friends I knew before. When they asked me what had happened, I tried to tell them, thanks to Calvary, I don't come here anymore. That's the way to go back. Thanks to Calvary, I'm not the man I used to be. Thanks to Calvary, things are different than before. As the tears came down my cheeks, I tried to tell them, thanks to Calvary, I don't come here anymore. He said, Hank, that's what you should do. Go back and tell them what Jesus Christ has done. Like the maniac of Gadara, go back and publish in the 10 cities what great things God has done in your life. Other men came into the prayer room. We talked with Hank. But Hank said, no, that's the way I'm going to do it. I'll be here Sunday night. You can count on that. But Sunday night, Hank wasn't there. You see, Sunday night, Hank was in eternity. On Wednesday, he had driven his car in front of a train, and he had instantly gone into eternity. Strong, husky, 25 years old, just seven more days. Seven more days. Next Sunday, I'd already sung at his funeral. Who would have believed it? Who would have thought it? There isn't any time to trifle with God's eternity. The time to settle eternity is today. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our mission is to see the lost reached and believers transformed by Jesus. You can find out more information about us at our website at srbible.org. Or you can visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road in Santa Rosa, California. You can also reach us by phone at 707-538-2385.