The book of Ezekiel takes place in Babylon during the Babylonian captivity. Therefore, Ezekiel is one of the “exilic” prophets. He encouraged the exiles to be faithful during the seventy-year exile. It is a story of glory departed and glory restored. God exiled His people to punish them, but that was not His only objective. He chastised them in order to restore them.

Lord, thank you. Thank you for these prophecies, these visions that you place before us. Lord, that you would give us a sense of your prophet Ezekiel and the things that He delivered from your hand to ours. Lord that you would use the minutes that we have now to come among us to speak to our hearts, to instruct our minds and to teach us in the way in which we should go as we behold your glory. The glory departed and the glory restored.

Amen. So open up to Ezekiel chapter 1. Ezekiel in some ways is one of the simplest books of the prophets. In another way it's the most difficult. It's the simplest because the outline and the structure is easy.

It's difficult because everything in the outline and in the structure is full of apocalyptic language, figurative language, and there are so many images to digest that you have to read it slowly. The theme of Ezekiel is that the glory of the Lord has departed but the glory of the Lord will be restored. Another commentator William Hendrickson said that the theme of Ezekiel was annihilation and resurrection. I think that works as well. It has to do with the problems of turning away from God and then the resurrection, the new life that comes by turning to God.

The critical message here is that God exiled his people to punish them, but that is not the end of the story. And that wasn't his only objective. You might ask, what are the purposes of God's chastisement? Well, here they're twofold. He chastised them in order to restore them.

This is the purpose of chastisement. And this is why we should always give thanks for the trials and tribulations that we go through. His purposes are beyond the pain that we might experience. And you know the Christian has to somehow look through the pain and see the glory at the end. So the glory of God is so prominent in Ezekiel.

It is probably the most prominent imagery in the book. The holiness of God, the sovereignty of God, the grace of God, the promises of God. You'll find all of these. As you read it, look for those various categories that I just listed. I'll give you an example.

1153, And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city. Then the Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to those in captivity. And the vision that I had seen went up from me so I spoke to those in captivity of all the things the Lord had shown me." And this is very very much a summary of what you see in the whole prophecy of Ezekiel. In chapter 43 verse 2, And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters and the earth shone with his glory.

Do you get the idea who the glory of God is here? It's the Lord Jesus Christ, the one with the voice. It sounds like many waters that you read about in Revelation. In chapter 48 verse 35, you read again about this glory, but here in chapter 48 verse 35, we read, This land that was desolate shall become like the garden of Eden, and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited. Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what is desolate.

I the Lord have spoken it and I will do it." That's the end of the prophecy in chapter 48 that God is returning his people to Eden, that beautiful garden of perfection. This is what God's doing in all of his trials that he imposes upon us. He's rebuilding us. He's remaking us. He's turning us back to Eden.

When you become a Christian your face is turned away from hell and to Eden and you're headed to that perfect garden where the presence of God was there and everything was right. One of the things that you'll notice is the phrase that you will know that I am the Lord. Look for that. That you will know that I am the Lord. There are 48 chapters, but this phrase comes out 70 times in this book that you will know that I am the Lord.

Whenever you read that just ask yourself Why did he say that? What came before that? Because you'll get a sense of how one knows the Lord Let's talk about the historical context Ezekiel is one of the exilic prophets. In other words, he prophesied to the exiles. You have the pre-exilic prophets like Isaiah, And then you have post-exilic prophets like Malachi.

But Ezekiel is one of the exilic prophets. He's prophesying to the faithful who are in exile in Babylon during the Babylonian captivity Jeremiah was prophesying at this time but he was still in Judah now in 605 Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon it's important to understand the historical connections here There were three stages of the exile. In 605 was the first wave of captives. Daniel was included in this exile after the battle of Karkamish where Josiah was killed in battle fighting against the Egyptians and Jeconiah was installed as king. Now the king Jehoiakim was rebelling against the king of Babylon.

And king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, caught wind of it. So he sent a small army to come and take captives. And Daniel was in that first captivity in 605 BC. The second captivity takes place in 597 BC and this is when Ezekiel was taken captive and during this captivity the most valuable treasures of the temple and the royal palace were taken away. Zedekiah the king was 21 years old here during this time and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.

So 597 is when Ezekiel is taken captive. And then in 586, Zedekiah is imprisoned and Jeremiah comes to Babylon. And at this point in 586, Jerusalem's walls and gates are burned with fire. A hundred thousand Jews are slaughtered in Judah. You know, millions more were exiled.

So 586 is the date that we know of the Babylonian captivity but it started really in 605 BC when Daniel went with the first wave, Ezekiel went with the second wave, and Jeremiah goes with the third wave in 586 BC. So I hope you can see that. Also you're going to read about Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin. Okay, got that? Now here's how you remember it.

Remember it by the alphabet. Jehoiakim ends with an M, that comes before N. So he's before Jehoiachin. Okay, You'll read about him here in this book, but just get those straight. They're two different kings.

But when Ezekiel is prophesying, the walls of Jerusalem are still up, the temple is still intact, and religion is still operating in Judah. But Ezekiel is prophesying to the captives. And what that means is that Ezekiel has a really different life compared to Jeremiah. Jeremiah was hated. He was the weeping prophet.

Ezekiel was appreciated. He was there comforting the captives with a vision of the glory of God. He was explaining why it happened because they, and why the glory of God departed. Ezekiel was doing this. But he was also, you know, casting a vision of hope.

So Ezekiel had a different kind of life. That's why Jeremiah is the weeping prophet and Ezekiel is the prophet with visions. And so they had a different experience. Jeremiah was shedding tears and Ezekiel was casting great visions. Now let's talk about Ezekiel for a minute.

He was a child during the days of Josiah when the book of the law was recovered. And then all those great reforms started. So Ezekiel saw all those reforms. He saw the turning away from idolatry during the reign of Josiah. Now he was probably almost the exact same age as Daniel.

He was, you know, when Daniel was taken captive, he was 17 to 20 years old. So Ezekiel was again one of those young prophets. Ezekiel knew Daniel and he knew Jeremiah. Think about that for a minute. They all prophesied at different times but very, very close.

I thought about this connection that these three men had. We're not told very much of it, but they do talk about one another. Here's what I want to bring out about it. It's so pivotal to understand who you are in league with when you're young. Who are your closest confidants?

Who are the people that you talk to? Who are the people that you're attracted to that you spend time with? Here's my recommendation. You know, be like these men. Be like Daniel and Ezekiel and Jeremiah who collaborated.

They spoke for the glory of God. Their hearts were toward God, their hearts burned with urgency to love God and to speak truth into the culture. And here's the question, do your friends fit that description? Here's my encouragement to you, Find those kind of friends. You know it's so easy to find silly young men and silly young girls and if you hang around the silly you'll become silly.

You hang around the godly and those who are sober minded who think great thoughts of God who long for heaven who desire to be obedient their hearts are turned toward God. These are the kind of young people that you need to be. Who are you with? Who do you like to listen to? This is pivotal.

This is so critical. But I love to think about this scene with these three prophets. So Ezekiel is transported to Babylon and right at the beginning of the siege there at that time his wife dies in 587 BC. I think we should also mention that he's a picture of Christ. He's called the Son of Man.

You'll read that phrase many times in Ezekiel. And so he goes to the rebellious house in the same way that the Lord Jesus spoke to the rebellious house of Israel. He started prophesying at age 30. He was a priest, but there at age 30, about the time when he was supposed to assume his duties as priest, because priests assumed their duties at age 30, he was diverted. And he took on the mantle of the prophet.

Now who else was 30 when he began his ministry? The Lord Jesus Christ. This is also how you see the Lord Jesus Christ in Ezekiel. And Ezekiel was a man of visions. His name means the strength of God, or God strengthens.

And there are various images of the strength that God speaks to him and tells him that God is going to give him a hard head in order to face the opposition that he'll experience there. I'd like to talk about the style of writing. This is the fourth item in your outline. Of course Ezekiel is one of the major prophets and remember a major prophet is not major because of he's more significant than the minor prophets. He's major because there's more that he wrote So that's why Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, these are the major prophets.

Of course you got 48 chapters here you can see why he's called one of the major prophets. I think it's also worth mentioning that Ezekiel gives to us one of the most logically ordered presentations of the prophets and you'll see that. The time of writing 592 BC to 570 BC. Okay so let's jump into the book here. I've given you two outlines here because they're different ways to look at the outline.

There's actually a third that I didn't really mention, but the first sort of way to conceive of this is that chapters 1 through 32 speak of the glory of the Lord departing the glory of the Lord departs and then in chapters 33 through 48 there are visions of the return of the glory of God. So that's one way to see it. Or in the middle of this you could add God's judgments against the nations because you'll find that many of the nations will be judged. Notice how the prophets speak of the judgment of God against the nations. You'll notice again the criteria that God uses to judge the nations, the law of God.

God judges every nation by his law. And you'll see that again here in this book. Now, as you can see, for our purposes of walking through it, I've broken this down into three sections. I'd like to just take some little morsels out of these sections here. The first section runs from chapter 1, verse 1 to chapter 24, verse 27.

And here there are prophecies that relate to the siege there are visions of the glory of God primarily. And in chapter one, Ezekiel sees visions of God. A storm produces four living creatures. He sees wheels within wheels and above them was a throne and the figure of a man." And that should be obvious enough to us to know who he was looking. He had a vision of Jesus Christ.

You'll have connections, you'll make connections with what you find in the book of Revelation and the visions of Christ that are there. Look at verse one in chapter one. Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Kabar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." There he is by this river. He lived in a small settlement about 50 miles south of Babylon. He was located in this community of exiles there and he's with the exiles there by the river Khabar.

You hear of these camps, these vast camps of political exiles that exist. They're all over the place. There are many of them outside of Iran as the Islamic government is threatening non-Muslims and they're going across the border and they're in these large camps of exiles. Well, that's what this was like. And in your lifetime, you'll read about various exiles and the large camps that are created as a result of it.

Well, this was like that. So he's with these captives. And as he's with the captives, he sees this vision. And so it says in verse 3, And the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzai, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Kabar and the hand of the Lord was upon him there." I love that phrase, the hand of the Lord was upon him there. This to me is the most blessed thing that one can possibly experience, the hand of God.

It doesn't matter where you are, as long as the hand of God is upon you. And the hand of God is upon you when your heart is turned toward him. Then in verse 4, I looked and behold a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself. Can you imagine this gigantic firestorm? You know how fire becomes so hot and so furious that it just consumes itself.

You heard of a firestorm? It just rolls and consumes everything. It's self-generating. Well, that's this picture here. This raging fire engulfing itself.

And brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst, like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance, and they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, each one had four wings, their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like the souls of calves feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze.

The hands of a man were under their wings on the four sides, and each of the four had faces and wings. Their wings touched one another. The creatures did not turn when they went but each one went straight forward As for the likeness of their faces each had the face of a man each of the four Had the face of a lion on the right side each of the four had a face of an ox on the left side and Each of the four had the face of an eagle Get the picture Yikes Some dream that's a dream. You might want to wake up from and so he just continues on about this remarkable disclosure of the glory of God and then in chapter 2 after this vision Ezekiel is commissioned by the Lord verse 1 and he said to me son of man stand on your feet and I will speak to you then the spirit entered me when he spoke to me and set me on my feet and I heard him spoke to me just a quick comment about the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God endues people with power for particular acts of service.

In the New Testament, the Spirit of God dwells within in a completely different way. It's a better covenant in the New Covenant. And one of the better parts about that is the Spirit of God dwells within you and while in the Old Testament the Spirit of God rests upon you for special endumance of power according to the desires of God. So this is what you see here. Verse 3, and he said to me, son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me.

They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day, this very day. They're in captivity. You would think they would have woken up, but there they are in the captivity and they're still struggling with their rebellion. But we see that Ezekiel is obedient. Verse 9, Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.

Then he spread it before me, and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. And then in chapter 3, the Lord tells him to eat the scroll. Son of man, eat what you find. This is chapter 3 verse 1. Eat this scroll and go.

Speak to the house of Israel. Verse 2, we see that Ezekiel is obedient. So I opened my mouth and he caused me to eat that scroll and he said to me, Son of Man, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you. So I ate and it was in my mouth like honey and sweetness." So he eats the scroll and if you skip down to verse 7, he says, you know, the house of Israel is not going to listen. Verse 8, Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces and your forehead strong against their foreheads.

Does this sound familiar? Remember the Lord Jesus Christ set His face like a flint to Jerusalem? Here you have a prophecy of Jesus Christ. And this is what every servant of Jesus Christ must have, a hard head in some ways. Not a hard heart, but a head that is not willing to budge in the midst of the pressures of a wicked and perverse generation.

He says verse 9, like an adamant stone harder than flint I have made your forehead do not be afraid of them nor be dismayed at their looks though they are rebellious house. So God was calling Ezekiel to have a head like the Lord Jesus Christ, resolute in his direction, to set his face toward the obedience of God. And so this is exactly what he did. Now in chapter 3 verse 17 we have this famous section. This is one of the critical passages in the book.

Chapter 3 verse 17 through 19 this is the Imagery of the watchman it's in the form of a command son of man. I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel Therefore hear a word from my mouth and give them warning from me when I say to the wicked you shall surely die and you give him no warning or speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity but his blood I will require at your hand So that was a terrifying reality that Ezekiel faced and all servants of God faced the very same reality. When we are afraid of man and We do not warn them of the wrath to come their blood Will be on our heads and This is why a Christian must always work on his fears particularly the fear of man Because the consequences of fearing man and keeping your mouth closed are disastrous For the person who needs to hear and the person who needs to speak Now there are signs and visions and parables of judgment. Did you hear that? Signs, visions, and parables.

You will encounter these all through the book. There are nine signs, And I'm just going to tell you about maybe two or three of them here. The first sign is the sign of the clay tablet. This is in chapter 4, verse 1, going to verse 3. I'll just read it to you.

You, son of man, take a clay tablet and lay it before you and portray on it a city Jerusalem. You get the idea? Here's this clay tablet and portray the city of Jerusalem on the tablet. Verse 2, lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it, and heap up a mound against it, set camps against it also, and place battering rams against it all around. Now, do you get the idea?

He's saying make a diorama of Jerusalem. Make a model of the city. And it's like making a small model of the city. There are siege works against it, there's a mound, there are camps all around it, there are battering rams all around. You've done, if you have a little brother or you have a little son or if you are a little boy or you used to be a little boy, you know how this works.

My children and grandchildren always made these battle scenes. We would give them soldiers and battering rams and things like that and they would create these battle scenes. And that's exactly what this man was commanded to do. He built this diorama. Verse 3 says, Moreover, take for yourself an iron plate and set it as an iron wall between you and the city.

Set your face against it and it shall be besieged and you shall lay siege against it This will be assigned to the house of Israel So he makes his diorama and he puts this iron wall up to be assigned. He's giving a living demonstration of the violence against Jerusalem that is coming. Remember, it's going to come with all of his fury in 586 B.C. And he is speaking to the captives about that coming time that will be experienced in Jerusalem. The next sign is the sign of Ezekiel lying on his side.

And I don't remember if I referred to this when we were in Isaiah 53 in the first section of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing the sins of his people. But I had it in my notes, I just don't remember if I talked about it. I don't think I did. But here is this sign of Ezekiel on lying on his side. Verse 4, lie on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it according to the number of days that you lie on it you shall bear their iniquity And then now here's the bad news for I've laid on you the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days 390 days so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel Now did Ezekiel lay on his side for 390 days?

Well, I think he did. It's astonishing to think about that. Is this just figurative, Or did he literally lie for 390 days? He's going to get bed sores on his side by doing that. Verse 6, and when you have completed them, lie against your right side.

Then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year." So Israel and Judah get two different kinds of punishment. The northern kingdom of Israel gets lots of days, 390 days. Judah gets 40 days. But he is illustrating the judgment that will come upon people.

Some people think that God judges all sin the same. Not true. Some sins are more serious than others and it's quite a discussion there's an article about this website defendingmarriage.com where we talk about the different levels of seriousness of sin the Bible makes it very clear that some sins are more serious than others The sins of Israel were more serious, 390 days. The southern king of Judah got 40 days because the seriousness of them was regarded by God to be less. Although there's also a place in the prophets, in Jeremiah, where Jeremiah says that the sins of Judah were worse than the sins of Israel, and God chose them in spite of that.

Verse 8, and surely I will restrain you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have ended the days of your siege." How about that? God was going to make sure that He did this and he would not be able to turn until it was time. It's just an astonishing sign. So there are nine of these signs. Here's another one.

The sign of the defiled bread. Verse nine in chapter four. Also, take for yourself wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. Put them into one vessel and make bread of them for yourself. Nice mix.

All kinds of different things in this bread. Some of you cook bread and you're thinking about, boy, maybe I should make some Ezekiel bread. During the number of days that you lie down on your side, 390 days you shall eat it. So the bad news about laying on your side is you had to eat the same old bread every day for 390 days. In verse 10 we read, And your food which you eat shall be by weight twenty shekels a day from time to time you shall drink, and you shall eat it as barley cakes and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight." He's supposed to cook this bread with human waste in the sight of his brothers who know that that will mean his defilement?

That's exactly right. Verse 13, Then the Lord said, so shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, where I drive them. In other words, He's illustrating what is going to happen to them. So I said, oh Lord God, indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now. I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has abominable flesh ever come into my mouth." Then the Lord says to him, See, I'm giving you cow dung instead of human waste and you shall prepare your bread over it.

Moreover he said to me son of man I shall surely cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety and shall drink water by measure and with bread and they that they may lack bread and water and be dismayed with one another and waste away because of their iniquity. That's the sign of the bread. And then there's an explanation of the signs in chapter 5, beginning in verse 5. So you'll get an explanation of these nine signs. Verse 11, chapter 5, therefore as I live says the Lord, surely because you have defiled my sanctuary and With all your detestable things and with your all your abominations therefore I will diminish you my eye will not spare nor will I have pity two things about this Why the signs?

Every single one of the signs is designed to point to the center of the reason for their judgment. And the center of the reason for their judgment is in their worship. Verse 11, You have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things. That is the heart of the matter. This is always the beginning of the judgment of God and it's also the unleashing of many sins of independence and creating your own world and turning away from God, His laws, His morality, His worship.

But it begins in worship. When you have a people that turn away from the worship of God the way that God has designed it you'll end up with the people who will be judged severely. God judges nations, God judges individuals on their worship whether it's true or false worship whether it's fake or whether it's genuine whether it's according to God's law or whether they just made it up on their own because they want their own designer religion. This has to do with the inventions of man in worship. And look at verse 12, It's staggering.

One third of you shall die of the pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst. One third shall fall by the sword all around you, and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them." This is the explanation of the science. It all goes back to worship. But you can read this whole section. We just read two verses from verses 11 and 12, but read verses from 5 through 17 and you'll get the whole picture of why.

Then there are six visions and we'll look at a couple of the visions. The first vision I'd like us to look at is the vision of the desolation of the land. Go to chapter 6 and find verse 11. Chapter 6 verse 11. Verse 11, Thus says the Lord God, pound your fists and stamp your feet and say, alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel for they shall fall by the sword by famine and by pestilence.

He who is far off shall die by the pestilence. He who is near shall fall by the sword. And he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus I will spend my fury on them. So this is all about the desolation of the land.

How does he announce this vision of desolation? He's pounding his fist and stamping his feet. So he's laying on his side, he's stamping his fist, he's cooking bread. You'll be really astonished as you read through this of the different illustrative ways that God commands Ezekiel to communicate the message. Then there's the vision of the glory of God.

Look at chapter 8 verse 1. Chapter 8 verses 1 through 4 speak of this vision. And it came to pass in the sixth year in the sixth month on the fifth day of the month that I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord fell upon me there. Then I looked, and there was a likeness like the appearance of fire, from the appearance of his waist and downward fire, and from his waist and upward like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber. And he stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem to the door of the north gate of the inner court where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy.

Now remember to pay close attention to chapter 8, because he's taken by the hair, okay? He's taken by the hair in this vision, he sees himself being lifted up, up to the sky, by his hair, between heaven and earth, and then there are these visions of God, and The first vision is astonishing. You'll have to read it. What he sees is just the corruption and the fakeness of the priests of Israel and their worship. He pulls back the curtain to show what's really going on among the religious people And then in chapter 9 there's the weeping of Ezekiel chapter 9 verses 8 through 11 So it was while they were killing them I was left alone and I fell on my face and cried out and said, Oh Lord God, will you destroy all of the remnant of Israel, pouring out your fury on Jerusalem?

Then he said to me, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed. And then, in verse 11, in this vision, a man clothed with linen with an ink horn at his side reports to him. So there's this vision of the man with the ink horn. So there are visions.

There are several visions. You'll encounter them. And then there are parables. There are six parables. One of the parables is the parable of the two eagles.

And it's a fascinating parable in chapter 17. It spans the entirety of chapter 17. And a great eagle with large wings, full of feathers of various colors, came to Lebanon and took from the cedar the highest branch. Well this is what eagles do. They take the highest branch.

But this is a strange eagle. He has feathers of various colors. Most eagles only have two or three colors, kind of brown and white and kind of gray. But this eagle had feathers of various colors, Just a fantastical eagle. Verse four, he cropped off its topmost young twig and carried it to a land of trade and set it in a city of merchants.

This is what eagles do when they make their nest. They take twigs and they build these gigantic nests. They're so big that other birds nest in their nests. They're just the most remarkable birds. And so you'll see what he does.

He takes some seed from one land and plants it and it grows. It's just an amazing parable, the parable of the two eagles. Then there's the parable of the withered vine in chapter 19, verses 10 through 14. And again, you'll find this picture of a particular vegetation that's designed to bear fruit. And you'll see what happens to this vine.

This vine is a parable. Then there's the parable of the boiling pot in chapter 24 verses 1 through 14. I'll just read a small section of this parable in chapter 24 beginning in verse 5. Take the choice of the flock also pile fuel bones under it make it boil well and let the cuts simmer in it get the picture there's meat simmering in a pot therefore that says the Lord woe to the bloody city to the pot whose scum is in it, and whose scum is not gone from it! Bring it out piece by piece, on which no lot has fallen, for her blood is in her midst.

She set it on top of a rock, she did not pour it on the ground to cover it with dust, that I may raise up fury and take vengeance. I have set her blood on top of a rock that it may not be covered. Therefore that says the Lord, woe to the bloody city. I too will make the pyre great. Woe to the bloody city.

You remember where we heard this before? Nineveh. Woe to the bloody city. Now Jerusalem has become like Nineveh, woe to the bloody city. A nation should always be very careful about its legacy of murder.

God exercises great judgment against those who take advantage of the weak and the defenseless and who make blood by it. We live in a time of blood. Our nation has been shedding blood like no other nation. We have shed more blood in this civilized society through abortion than any other time. People get so worked up about Nazi Germany and the six million Jews that died there.

It's only six million. We've killed over 50 million babies in America alone since 1973. Murdered them, dismembered them, chopped them up, taken their limbs and sold them. This is what the abortion clinics are doing in the world today. I just saw the fifth video that the Center for Medical Progress just released about an hour and a half before we had this meeting.

It's astonishing what we're doing. Here's what America needs to recognize. When there's a bloody city, God will expose the blood And he will destroy that city. And America should not think that they're different because they're so advanced and so wealthy and so smart. Because when there's a city of blood and the weak and the poor and the defenseless are made of blood, then there's judgment that's coming.

This is the parable of the boiling pot in chapter 24. There's the departure of the glory of God. If you go all the way back to chapter 10, in chapter 10, the glory of the Lord leaves the temple. And then there are various prophecies after the siege, which you find in chapter 33, verse one to 48. The parable of the watchman in chapter 33 1-33 is an elaboration of the watchman that we read about earlier in the book.

It's a more detailed elaboration. In chapter 34 there is the parable of the false shepherds. This is one of the most important chapters in Ezekiel. There are two things that are spoken of here in chapter 34. The characteristics of false shepherds and the characteristics of a good shepherd.

That's what you find. It really is a vision of Jesus Christ as the good shepherd. Let me just try to summarize chapter 34 for you. The false shepherds don't care about those who are lost. They don't care about those who have been driven away.

They don't care about those who have been hurt. They don't care about the weak. They want to be identified with the smart and the successful. But the good shepherds aren't like that. They help the weak.

They love the broken. And they're not caught up in a success treadmill but they desire to restore those who've been broken and that's the big difference So read about the good shepherd and the false shepherds in 34. When you get to 34, slow down and you'll see the beauty of Jesus Christ. You'll also get a sense of what God desires his church to be like as a flock. And if any of you are considering that the Lord might be calling you to be a shepherd in the Church of God, recognize the big difference between true shepherds and false shepherds.

When we get to chapter 48, which is the end of the book, you know, find yourself immersing your mind in the imagery in 48. It's remarkable. It's like nothing you've ever read before. Let's pick it up in verse 29 in chapter 48. It ends with a picture of the land.

And the land has Always meant something more than the land. The land that God created, Eden, the land that God set aside for his people, the promised land, and then the land that's called Canaan's land. Canaan's land is a picture of another land, heaven, where the inheritance of the people of God is gained. And there's rest. So This is all about the land and the city and the division of the land.

So verse 29 in chapter 48, this is the land which you shall divide by lot as an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. And these are their portions, says the Lord God. These are the exits of the city one of the north measuring 4, 500 cubits the gates of the city shall be named after the tribes of Israel The three gates northward, one gate for Reuben, one gate for Judah, one gate for Levi. On the east side, 4, 500 cubits, three gates. One gate for Joseph, one gate for Benjamin, one gate for Dan.

Verse 33, on the south side, measuring 4, 500 cubits, three gates, one for Simeon, one for Issachar, one gate for Zebulun. On the west side, 4, 500 cubits with their three gates, one gate for Gad, one gate for Asher, and one gate for Naphtali. Now verse 35 really provides the interpretive key to the entire book. It explains what Ezekiel has been driving at all along, that there's a land, that there's a city where the glory of God dwells. He's spoken of how the glory of God has departed from Israel.

Exactly how did it happen? He explains that and the consequences of the departing of the glory of God and showing you how desperate you ought to be for the glory of God because when the glory of God departs everything falls apart. He's been saying that all along in all these visions and parables and illustrations. And so then he gives us the final clue to the beauty of the glory of God. And He does it by giving us the name of the city, that eternal city that the people of God will dwell in.

It's a beautiful city. It's a city of peace and abundance. It's not like any city you've ever lived in any abundance you experienced here just points to the abundance of that city You know, I've always loved the homes and the land that I've lived on all my life whether it was small or large And because they've all pointed to another land, I've always known that my house, my city, my land was just an illustration of something so far greater. So I always set myself to enjoy it, to savor it, no matter what it was. Whether it was small and worn out as some of the places I've lived were, or large and beautiful.

But they all point to this one thing, this one reality, this one beautiful experience of the glory of God. And the reason is given in verse 35, in the name of the city. All the way around shall be 18, 000 cubits and the name of the city from that day shall be the Lord is there. Now, the Lord is there should be the defining factor in your home today. You may live in your parents' home, you may own a home.

The purpose of your home is to establish a place where the Lord is, where the glory of God dwells. Because your home is a parable of heaven. A home should be a picture of heaven and all of its glory, all of its happiness, all of its colors and activities and riches and sweetness, because the Lord is there. And it's for those who live in homes to see to it that they paint the picture well in their homes, to cry out to God in the morning, to let his loving kindness be known in the morning and his faithfulness by night, because the Lord is there. And so Ezekiel has been casting this vision of the glory of the Lord departed and the glory of the Lord restored.

And we're all part of it as true believers who love the Lord Jesus Christ and are called according to His purpose. We have a role in this city and the experience of the Lord who is there. And so there's Ezekiel here. What a remarkable book.