Ezekiel: A Love Story, Pt. 1 (GCBI 107.03)

Let's go to chapter one. And can I suggest to you that Warren Webb, in his, uh, book called "Be Reverent," which is his description of the, um, uh, of the Book of Ezekiel, he says that the thesis of the book was moving a priest to a prophet. That part of what God's call involved for Ezekiel was to stop being a priest. Not stop, but, you know, I, to focus his attention from being a, a priest to being a prophet. Guys, let's just think for a minute. What's the difference between a priest and a prophet? What did a priest do? Talk to me about a priest. Performed daily sacrifice. What else? People consecrated, people cleaned the temple. There were certain Levites probably did the bulk of the cleaning, but priests, uh, did you dress differently? Yes. So when you walked down the street, did everyone know you were a priest? Okay. So a priest then was an esteemed person in their society, right? He studied the word, studied the law, understood it, learned the roles that he had from the law, specifically and precisely, learned how to do each sacrifice. Priests didn't really do counseling. They didn't really, they took care of the prescriptions of law. You went to the priest as a leper that was apparently cleansed to be checked for your cleansing, and they, using the laws, applied the law to your situation, right? So it's very kind of cut and dried. You get that.

But a prophet, on the other hand, was not normally esteemed. Normally, they were despised. Often, they were persecuted. A prophet couldn't learn God's word. I mean, they could study the written word, but when you get up to prophesy, you're the first one saying it. See the problem? So a prophet couldn't just learn it. But what he could do was follow God. He couldn't just learn a script. He had to stand up with God's burden and message on his heart and pronounce it. Sometimes he would, uh, give hard words. Sometimes he would suffer harsh taunts. And by, by the way, his esteem in the community plummeted. Amos would have been better off as a fig-pincher than a fig-pincher who became a prophet. When you become a prophet, somebody hates you. Cuz generally, think about the words of all the prophets we studied, their condemnation and consolation. Everybody likes the second half. It's the first half they hate. My wife, years ago, well, I was, uh, serving in a local church, and I said something to her, and she said, "Well, that's okay. Everybody always likes me. It's you they have problems with." It's true because I was the guy who was bringing the word. And so if you're going to be mad at God, you're going to be mad at the person who told you. And I'd like to think that that was really the reason they weren't mad at me. Maybe it was probably other things. But the point is that when you get here, false prophets abounded in his day.

So as we open up chapter one and we look at this, there's three parts to the vision of chapter one. Chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. The one through three, the call is three parts. First, in chapter one, I would simply call it seeing, um, seeing the Majestic One. Seeing the Majestic One. That's chapter one. Seeing the Majestic One. This is all part of his call, chapters one, two, and three. Second, chapter, hearing the word of the Lord. So chapter one, seeing the Majestic One. Chapter two, hearing the word of the Lord. And then chapter three, becoming the prophetic Watchman. Becoming the prophetic Watchman. In other words, he saw the Majesty of God, he heard his word, and then he was commissioned to become a prophetic Watchman, one who would call out in the night and call out in the darkness and let people know that God was at work. What I want you to see as you're looking at this is that Ezekiel one offers three specific requirements. What's involved in becoming a spokesman for God in the face of false speakers? Let me suggest to you that there are three specific requirements. The first one is preparation. And, and that's what I have next to verse one. Preparation. God waited until he was ready to serve him, to reveal great truths about himself. Look at verse one. "In the very beginning, now it came about in the 30th year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." Stop your reading right there.

So the preparation principle is this: God has a time for everything in our lives. We're not always ready to do what needs to be done. So preparation is a real part of the process of succeeding in our mission for God. There's no need to become impatient about what God is doing in us. So right now, you are sitting in class. It would be wonderful if you were out saving souls and stamping out disease and changing your, your generation for Jesus. But you're not ready yet. The cake's only good when it's finished baking. Now, the point is that you can get into a situation where you try to jump the gun out of impatience, and you're not ready. In the recent Summer Olympic Games back in 2012, Kim Rhode won the gold medal in skeet shooting, which made her the first American to win five Olympic medals in five consecutive Olympic Games. In the 2012 games, she hit 99 out of 100 skeet, setting a new Olympic record and tying the world's record for the event. She, uh, she was asked by the New York Times how she managed to achieve this. She said she shoots anywhere from 500 to 1,000 rounds every day of the week, year-round. If you do the math, that's three million shots from a shotgun a year, 600,000 per each gold medal. In other words, serious achievements are seldom done haphazardly. You, you take a lot of time. You spend a great deal of time preparing. The better you prepare for something, the easier it will be to go through the experience. I will tell you this, and I know that some of you know this: I am neurotic about planning. I have planning days to plan my planning days. I do. I'm serious. I have three levels of planning. I'm planning the planning, then I'm planning, then I'm planning what I planned. Okay? And I, I actually have this very weird system. Here's the thing: I would rather panic today about Sunday and say, "I've got to have this ready." By the way, they're all typed and ready in the file, ready for Sunday. But the point is, if they weren't, I'd be like, "Ah!" I'd rather panic now so I can relax. Then if you prepare, panic in the preparation, don't panic in the delivery. Okay? If you're ready, you're ready.

By the way, some people are going to look at you and they're going to say, "Yeah, but it's not spirit-led." Can I just suggest that the Spirit is available in the study as well? He's not only available when you get up on, on the stage or the platform. He was available back in the preparation room. I prefer to think Luke actually practiced the guitar somewhere along the way. He didn't just get up and go, "Oh, Lord, hit me with the knowledge." Okay? Because if it could really be like that, then I would do it. But I can't.

All right, there's a second principle I want you to notice, and it's the second part of verse one. God chose the word I use is consecration. God chose to come to the prophet, though it didn't seem like it was the right place, and it didn't seem like it was the right time. Look at, look at the place and time God came. He's on the Chebar River in Babylon, away from home. Look at verse two. "On the fifth of the month, in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's exile." In other words, he's in the middle of a place where he doesn't belong, in the middle of an exile that is a terrible thing, and God decides to meet him there. Consecration is this. This is the principle: Consecration is God will set you apart, and the work of God is entrusted to the ones he sets apart, and they have to know their call. Let me say another way: God will set you apart, and you have to know it to be consecrated. God doesn't just call you to something and then you just kind of blindly do it without knowing it. Consecration is about you preparing and you being ready for God to do it because he's called you to do it. There's a reason I think I go home at, after these classes, with great joy. I go home after these classes with great joy because the day is over and I can relax. But that's not the only reason. Seriously, when you're called to do something and you do it, it's fun. When you're called to do something and you do it, it's fulfilling. It's not always fun in every moment, but it's fulfilling, and you feel like you're actually doing what God put you on the planet to do. Look, I'm going to take up the number of years I'm here anyway. The question is whether or not I'm going to actually accomplish what God wants me to accomplish. And the same is true of you. So as you move toward it, you'll feel completed in doing what you're consecrated to do.

Now, for some of you, consecration will come in the form of pregnancy. You will know God has called you to raise a child. How will you know? One will appear, and then you will know. And you will not go, "Gee, I wonder if I'm supposed to be the mom." You're supposed to be the mom. How do I know? It's in you. That's how I know. Okay? And you just go with it, and that's your call. And from the moment of that call, God begins to tenderly shape your heart as he shapes that child. And then you begin to move to, that's fun. As you're, you're not just raising a child, you're sculpting a life. You're doing something that has incredible hundreds of years in front of it because their children, and their children, and their children. Okay.

It's worth noting that the word of the Lord was mentioned 50 times in the book, and the hand of the Lord is mentioned seven times in the book. So God seems to be moving, uh, on him. And it says in verse, uh, verse three, "The word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar. And there the hand of the Lord came upon him." So it's very clear that not only did the word of the Lord appear, but also God began to move in his life. It's interesting, um, that when you're looking at the scriptures, you can see that God is sculpting it. But there's, there's a third one. There's preparation, there's consecration. Let me give you the third one: presentation. Presentation. And presentation, I get from verse four. God personally presented a message to the prophet in a personal meeting. Let me say it this way: You can't give out what you do not possess. You can't give out Jesus if you don't have him. You can't get people jazzed about getting into the word if you don't. You can't get people to buy a passion that you don't have. So here, God personally met Ezekiel. Ezekiel's call was not a simple one. It was accompanied with an incredible vision of the glory of God, and the storm of the four living creatures are going to come upon him in verses 4-24. Hang on to your hat for what you see in this vision because it's unbelievable. Look at verse four.

"And as I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with flashes of fire, flashing fire, flashing not fly, flash, flashing fire, flashing forth continually, and a bright light around it, and in the midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire." What's he seeing? Right next to that, Isaiah 6, Habakkuk 3, Jeremiah 4, Nahum 1. Isaiah 6, Habakkuk 3, Jeremiah 4, Nahum 1. God's judgment coming in the form of a, a great vision. But in this case, like Habakkuk 3, comes in the form of a storm. The, the ruach, the ruach is the word for spirit, wind blowing, the storm. Ruach was coming from the north. The Hebrew terminology for the normal place of an invasion is the north, because when you came into the land of Canaan, you always came by way of the north. So I want you to see that there was immense power in what he was seeing. Scientists say that a typical lightning bolt bridges a potential difference of voltage of nearly several hundred million volts. One lightning bolt, several hundred million volts. A famous strike on a 15th in 1971 measured 100,000 amps by magnetic links attached to the umbilical tower. Currents of over 200,000 amps have been reported. One lightning strike can carry enough electricity to power 10 million homes for one month. One lightning strike. That's how much electricity is there. The temperatures of lightning are somewhere between 15,000 and 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot. And the interesting thing is that, um, there's cold and hot lightning. Cold lightning is 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot lightning is 60,000. So it's interesting because over 10,000 fires a year are reported that are struck by lightning in the United States alone. All that to say, God has immense power. That's just a lightning strike. You need to step back and see the immense power of God, one who can hurl the stars into place, and on one little rock, in one little solar system, produce one little zap, one time, that could power 10 million homes for a month. That's the size and immensity of God.

So, so what does he see? He sees in verse four that there's this storm wind coming, and this great fire flashing in the clouds, lightning is coming, and bright light is all around it. And then it says one's coming in the midst, like the midst of a fire. And then it says that there's an absolute distinctiveness of God. God's holiness comes toward you. Look at verse five. "God is holy." And what is the marker of God's holiness? Normally, who protects or guards or pronounces the holiness of God? There's one group that says it, and one group that protects it. The cherubim come like a wall in front of him. Him. And so it says, "Within it, within it were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had a human form, but each one had four faces and four wings." This is different than seraphim, who are like the chanters or, um, callers. What are the seraphim calling? "Holy, holy, holy." Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. But they have six wings. These are living creatures with four wings, and they go before the throne of God. These will be, um, the four wings are different than the six-winged seraphim in Isaiah 6. Cherubim are also seen in Daniel 7, so we can identify these.

Now, what's interesting is, I, you're going to freak out, I know, but God apparently moves on a chariot. Okay? It's a, it's a series of wheels within wheels. It's a gear system, some kind of technology. Okay? Just watch it for a second, and I'll try to describe what it is. "Their legs were straight, and their feet were like a calf's hoof; they gleamed like burnished bronze. And under their wings, on the four sides were human hands. As for the faces and the wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another. Their faces did not turn around when they moved; each went straight forward. As for the form of their faces: each had the face of a man, the face of a lion, the face of a bull, and the face of an eagle." Verse 11 says, "Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being." That is, they actually, they came as a team, and their wings touched one against the other. So they lined up, and they were like a solid wall of winged something coming at you. Okay? As they came in, kind of a formation. Verse 12 says, "And each went straightforward; whenever the Spirit was about to go, they would go without turning as they went." And in the midst of the living beings, there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. This is, this is almost like if you could visually see what a fiber optic network looks like. It's flashes of light moving back and forth between them as they're communicating. It's like you can see in light the communication between them. Okay? "In the midst of the living beings, there was something like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright, and the lightning was flashing from fire, from the fire, and the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning." So you see the visual marker of the inner sanctum of the temple had cherubim on it in First Kings 6. These cherubim are representative guardians of the holiness of God. They come before God, and apparently they have faces, but not a neck. They never turn their head. They're always facing the same way when they move. Their, their face always stays in the same position. The four faces are always fixed. So they don't turn their head. In other words, it's like they're forged in one direction. Okay?

So how do they move? Well, I'm glad you asked. Uh, this, there's the Spirit is in the eyes of the wheel. I want you to look at the Providence of God here, the way it's described. Now, verse 15. "As I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings for each of the four of them." What's he saying? It's not only in heaven. There's a connection between what they're doing and what's happening on Earth. The connection in verse 15 is one of their wheels is actually fixed to the Earth. So, in other words, in Ezekiel, what Ezekiel is seeing is God coming in holiness and power, and these great living creatures coming toward him, but their impact is felt. One of the wheels touches the Earth. There's a connection between what's going on in heaven and what's going on on Earth. Give me a Jacob story that approximates the same idea. A, a stairway or a ladder with angels coming and going. In other words, one part of it fixed in heaven, the other part of it's touching the Earth. He's saying they're on these chariots, but one wheel is on the Earth, and the other one is in the, in the spiritual world. So they have a direct connection between what's going on in both worlds, 1.0 and World 2.0.

It's worth noting that the wheels not only moved the creatures about, but they left an impact on the physical realm and the spiritual one. So the wheel touched the Earth. Now look at the appearance in verse, um, 16. "The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like, like sparkling beryl; and all of them had the same form: their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel was within another." Now, here's what I don't know. I don't know if it's a gyroscope where you have a wheel inside of another wheel like this, or if what you're looking at is actually something more like gears, where one, one wheel's going this way, and one's going that way, and the gears are turning like that. Does that make sense? I can't, can't tell which he means. We don't know. The language doesn't. He's trying to tell you he saw something incredible. Remember when John in Revelation sees a city of glass? He's never been to San Francisco. If you go to San Francisco, it looks like a city of glass. Here's this big tower, and it's all made of glass, and elevators made of glass. If John saw that, he'd say, "I saw a city, and it was like crystal, and it glowed," because he's never had an electric company. He's never seen an elevator. So they're only telling you what they see, but they don't understand the technology of it because it's beyond anything they ever saw. In Revelation, if a, a hail falls onto the Earth, but it blows up in fire, he's never seen a ballistic missile. He doesn't know what it is. He just knows it's something hard that comes from the sky like hail, and when it hits the ground, it blows up. So he calls it hail. It doesn't have to be hail. It just, he doesn't have another word for it. Okay? So in prophetic language, when you're looking forward to the technology, understand that if a person 100 years ago dropped into our life and was handed one of these, they wouldn't have a clue what it is. They'd say, "Can you eat it? Can you fry on it? What can you do with it?" And by the way, a 100 years from now, nobody will care what this was because they'll have some other communication device.

So here you have in verse 17. "Look at the movement. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without turning as they moved." So they're always, I want you to picture, if the, if it's geared, it's like they move up, they move down, they move like this, but they never actually turn their face. Wherever they're going, they just move like this. So it's all like a wall. The only thing I can get from the description is that they're, they come as a unit, their wings touch, and they move like one wall moving, and they keep their faces faced on front. We haven't done the eyes yet. Okay? Verse 17, it seems like it remains like they remain facing you always, regardless of whatever direction the axis is turning.

Now, verse 18. "Look at the purposes." "As for their rims," that which he's talking about, the rims of these wheels, "as for their rims, they were lofty and awesome; like the rims of all four of them were full of eyes all the way around." Okay? So you got rims of wheels that have eyes everywhere. And, um, "whenever the living beings moved, the wheel moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also." See, the wheels are rimmed, but the rims are not treads. They're eyes all the way around them. They're eyes this direction, this direction. So what you're seeing is something that perhaps could be a good artistic rendition of omniscience, the ability to see it all, to know it all, kind of the all-seeing eye, if I could do it that way. Except for instead of just being one big eye like a cyclops in the middle of their head, it's wherever they're moving, they're moving knowledgeably. They see, they, they see, they know.

Now look at the direction. "Whenever the Spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction." Verse 20. "And the wheels rose close behind them, for the Spirit of the living beings was in the wheels." Apparently, the beings are big winged beings, but their life is in the wheel system underneath. Their power is in the wheel system underneath. Imagine that somebody came from 500 years ago, and Dennis drove up in his car, and they would say, "And I saw a great beast, and I looked through the beast, and in the heart of the beast was a man, but the power of the man was not in the man, it was in the, the beast, and then the wheels underneath of him." You see the poetry? It's all he's doing is describing to you how something functions when he doesn't understand how it functions. That's all he's doing. Don't get all caught up in, "What does God want us to know about the eyeball? Is the third eyeball more important than the fourth eyeball?" Get off of it. He's just trying to tell you, "Man, I saw this thing, and I got to tell you, God came, and there was this wall of angelic beings, each one had four faces. There were these four beings, they came at me. They had this weird conveyor and wheel system in which they were being transported, and the, and the wheels were full of eyes, and inside the wheel mechanisms were the spirit or the driving force or the wind of the actual beings themselves. They were deriving their power and energy from that. And the way they communicated were the black flashes of light running between them, and they were directed by the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of God was separate than them. They weren't the Spirit. They were just getting communication, and whichever way the Spirit desired to go, they would then follow that direction, always in a wall, always in tandem, always with knowledge, and always with their eyes and their wheels." Anybody lost yet?

So it says, verse 21. "Whenever those went, these went. Whenever those stood still, these stood still. Whenever they rose up from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them, for the Spirit of the living ones was in the wheels." These didn't determine their own direction. They moved by the will of God's Spirit. Whatever God's Spirit wanted to do, that's what they did. The very Spirit of the living creatures was within the wheels. They were made to be mobile. Their purpose included inspection to see and propulsion to move. So that's what they were.

Now, stop and look at the expanse that he saw above. So this is what he saw coming toward him, and then he said, "I looked up, and look at the expanse." It says, "Now over the heads of the living beings, there was something like an expanse, like an awesome gleam of crystal spread over their heads. Under the expanse, their wings were stretching out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body." And on one side and on the other. So apparently they've got four wings, and two of the wings are, are, are flapping and touching the other wings of the other one, and the other two are wrapping around them. Okay? It's, it's worth noting, though, that their powerful command came from where? Where did the commands come? He saw powerful beings, but above their head was something else. In other words, they took command from something above them. And what's interesting is that, um, that the picture of the temple as it opens in antiquity. Look at verse 24. I want you to see the unmistakable voice of God as the director of the entire scene. Says, "I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters, as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army camp. Whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings, and there came a voice from above the expanse that was over their heads." Whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings. So the wings apparently are used in the propulsion system. They get direction from above their head. And what I think is so cool is he gives you, it sounds like a crowd. It sounds like a, a massive number of people. I have an app that I can play that has like a sound of a crowd, but it's, when, when they're moving, it's not a singular voice, it's a massive thundering multitude of voices, interconnected. God's voice is often described just like this. You'll see it in Revelation 1. You'll see it in Revelation 19, like the voice of many waters. It's like the thundering of the falls, something like that. In Jeremiah 51, you'll see it. Uh, Ezekiel 43, you're going to see the same description. God's voice sounds like this. It's like this loud, thundering tumult.

Now look at the unshakable throne of God in verse 26. Because God is not only the director in verses 24 and 25, he's the ruler. In verse 26, it says, "Now above the expanse that was over their heads, there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance." It's a blue in appearance. Uh, on, on that which resembled a throne, high up, there was the figure with the appearance of a man. What's interesting is you're looking at the throne of God, and God looks like a man. Now, he's not a man. You're just, you were made in his, uh, image, his likeness, or his shadow, or his casting. But here's the truth: he looks at something, and he sees there's one on a throne high above these four living creatures. You know, Revelation 1 opens with the scene of the throne room in a similar way. Revelation 20, the Great White Throne judgment, same scene. He says, "I got a vision of God and these four living creatures in front of me." Then it says in verses 27 and 28, "My favorite thing about God: he is colorful. God is not bland." It says, "Then I noticed from the appearance of his loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of his loins and downward, I saw something like fire, and there was a radiance around him, as the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice speaking."

Yeah, you have to understand what he just saw. He didn't just see a cool shot of heaven. He saw God with the Holy Guardians coming toward him. Because no man can serve a God he does not worship. That man has to believe in the power and the benevolence of God to such an extent that no other following deserves his attention. I, if I, such a, a belief is going to change the path of my life, it can't be for anything less than a, than a fabulous, magnificent, beautiful, majestic, awesome God. Let me say it another way: The size of your vision of God has a lot to do with the size of your sacrifice for God. If God is too small in your eyes, you will discount him cheaply. There's a song that was written a generation ago, and one of the lines I think of often, it says, "I have made you too small in my eyes, oh Lord, forgive me. I have made you too small in my eyes." When, when something else is bigger than God, it becomes the very idol that God has chosen. It's the thing he doesn't want in our life.

Now, here's the thing: You can't give what you don't have. You can't share a personal walk with God if you haven't experienced a personal walk with God. The depth and the passion of your call and your walk are all the basis on which you're going to do anything for God. No matter what God called him to say, no matter what opposition rose among the people, Ezekiel knew who God was. And because he had seen God, nothing could turn him off. The, the, I don't, there's not words for this. The depth of the well of your dealing with God in intimacy has everything to do with whether or not you can stand in the face of the person who wants to take your life and say, "I stand for the Living God, and I will not turn back." You know, a guy like a Martin Luther that says, "I will obey, and I can do no other." It comes because they have an experience with God. You're going to, you're going to give up and cut and run if you don't have a deep walk with God. And he's being called to do something. Well, I've already warned you as a spoiler alert, he's being called to a crappy work. Ezekiel knew whom he believed, and he knew, and he heard, and he followed. I want to tell you something: in the Bible, the people that God used the greatest were not the people with the greatest talents. The people that God used the greatest were the people with the most intimate walk with God. They weren't the perfect people. They were the David's and the Abraham's. Abraham's trading off Sarah, David can't keep his pants on. And here's the bottom line: God used them both deeply because he had an intimate walk with them. Intimate walk does not equal never sins. Intimate walk does not equal has the best talents in the room. Intimate walk is they learned how to really pour themselves out before God. So every person in this room has the potential to do unbelievable things for God, but they, it will be directly correspondent not to your talents, but to your surrender. And what I think is interesting is, you know, Paul, Second Timothy 1, listen to what he said: "For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what which I have entrusted to him until that day. Timothy, retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you." I, I want you to, I want you to grasp that. Not only that, but the people, the people were going to know when they saw Ezekiel that he had met God. I, I think it's interesting. Look, look at chapter 2, verse 5. I want you to see something in 25. "As for them, whether they listen or not, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them." Underline that. If you have a walk with God, people may slander you, but they will know you're different. That if you have a walk with God, people may laugh at the notion that you have of God, but they will know that he has marked your life. In other words, if you're a real believer, you don't need a t-shirt that says you are, because it will show, and people will know it.

Here's the thing: he has this incredible experience. So I want you to wrap up chapter one. And here's what I want you to do: Search the whole of the scriptures, and you will not find God calling anyone and then asking them to figure out what to do for him. You will ever, you will not find that in scripture. You will never see him going, "I have called you. Now go figure out what it is that will help me." God simply does not do this. God repeatedly asks only for two things in scripture: their agreement to search his revealed truths and their surrender to what he tells them. God is not interested in you solving the problems of your life. God is interested in two things: Will you listen to the word that I have given you? And will you surrender the will that you have within you? If you will do those two things, you will have accomplished what God has asked you to do. By the way, 53 years of life, and I'm still struggling to do it. It is a lifetime adventure to try and get done.

Second thing I want you to know is God often called a man or woman as the platform to share his plan. In, in the case of Noah, build an ark. Make it a living display. In other words, God may call you to go do something. I'm going to show you that Ezekiel becomes better than television to watch. This guy is so weird and has such weird things to do in public, he's better than watching TV. So God may call you, and your life to be the spectacle to get other people to watch him. I want you to understand that very often, God will call a man or a woman to use their life as a platform to share his plan.

Okay, the third thing I want you to see is God can use the wrong place and the wrong time in your life. Chapter one is all about one thing: I'm in the wrong town. I'm surrounded by the wrong people. I'm supposed to be a priest, priest serving in the temple in Jerusalem, and here I am sitting by the Chebar River in Babylon. Yuck. But God can use the wrong place in the wrong time because the fact of the matter is, it's not, it's not always what you think it is. God is not limited to you being in the right spot or the pretty place for God to do something profound in your life. Very often, God will do something profound in your life at a moment when it's absolutely totally beyond. Listen, somebody here is going to meet the love of their life because you're going to get a flat tire. Okay? And you're going to be pulled over to the side of the road. You know, you could just see Ashley pulled over to the side of the road crying because her tire is flat and she doesn't have a spare, and she's like, "I don't know what to do." And then he, then here comes Prince Charming, comes up in a tow truck, you know? And here's the thing, you know, all I'm trying to tell you is, you don't put on your daytimer the cool things God is going to do. He's going to do cool things, but you're not going to know they're going to happen until they happen. And for some of us, like me, who were pretty obtuse, you won't even know they happened after they happen. It will be years later that you will realize, "Yes, it's true. She filled my car with balloons, and I did not know she liked me." It's absolutely true. I didn't know because I'm me, and I'm obtuse.

When you take chapter one and you look at chapters one, two, and three, I'm going to give you a, a chart. This chart is really about the way the whole book is divided because what I did was I went through the book and I looked for each thing that had a date in it, and then I organized the book around it. Um, I want you to know that the next section is going to be a section about judgment. But I also have to stop and just point out to you that there are a series of parables. I wrote these on the board so I don't have to stand here and do them verbally. But this Ezekiel has more parables than any book of the Hebrew scriptures, and it is likened to Matthew in the respect that there are a lot of parables in it. I want to take a moment while he's making the chart and go to Ezekiel 15 and just show you from, um, the section, this box right here. This is condemnation of God's people through the parable of a fruitless vine. And I just want to take a moment and see if I can get you to, um, kind of know a little bit about what the fruitless, the, the fruitless vine is. It says, "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, how is the wood of the vine better than the wood of a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Can wood be taken from it to make anything, or can men take a peg from it on which to hang something?'" So he, he actually is asking a question that comes up in Isaiah 22. This is a question that it's already been asked, been asked before. So you might mark Isaiah 22:23 to 25. "If it has been put into the fire for fuel, and the fire has consumed both of its ends, and in the middle part it has been charred, is it useful for anything? Behold, while it is intact, it is not made into anything. How much less when the fire has consumed it and it is charred, can it still be made into anything? Therefore, says thus says the Lord God, 'As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given for the fuel for fire, for the fuel, so have I given the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I have set my face against them.'" Underline this phrase in verse 7. "I have set my face against them. Though they have come out of the fire, yet the fire will consume them. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them. Thus I will make the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully,' declares the Lord."

All right, what is the story about? Let me use a, um, an imitation vine. Forget the lights. There are no lights on this vine. All right, let's pretend that what we have is a vine. Okay? If, what's the difference between say, this tree and a, and a, a grapevine in terms of its wood? I'm sorry. Okay. In fact, a vine that's 20 years old can be as thick as all three of these. Um, this would be about the thickness of a seven-year-old vine, um, in, in Judea. So let's say it could be very thick. So it's not the thickness. But vines don't grow like this, do they? They're not very straight. They're not very strong. They're made, I mean, essentially a grape vine is like a weed. Okay? I mean, it's, it grows, and it's stringy, and it's fibery, but it's very flexible. It can go in many directions, but it tends not to have a strong form. So when he talks about this vine, he says, "Let me ask you something," verse three, "Can you make a peg from a vine?" Not really, because when you cut a vine, it's real spongy wood. It's not solid. It's not like a hard wood. So it's not good for building stuff, is it? Well, look at verse four. "If you put it in the fire for fuel, and it burns the ends, and the middle is charred, is it better or worse than when it was just growing in the ground? Is it more or less useful after you've burned its edges?" It's only weaker. The vine doesn't get stronger because of the heat. It only gets weaker. And he says, verse five, "Even though it's intact, it's not made into anything." You can't use it for anything. What's he saying? What is the symbol of burning the edges but not burning? So it's consumed. Where are we? We are in the first half of the book, before 24. And his wife dies after 24. On the day the temple is destroyed. Is there still a temple at the time in which he's giving this prophecy? Yes. But Jerusalem has been singed, but not destroyed yet. The Babylonians have come and carried away people, but haven't totally dissected or destroyed the city and the temple. And what God says is, "I'm going to turn my face away from my temple. I'm going to turn my face away from Jerusalem. And what is now singed on the edges still can't be used for anything. So I'm going to burn the whole thing." That's what he says. So the parable of the fruitless vine is that the, the vine doesn't have any use in building, and now that it's half singed and charred and burned, it has even less use, and I'm going to turn my face away, and that's going to be the end of it. I'm going to get rid of Jerusalem and its temple. Now, in the meantime, what's everybody else in town telling them? "Oh, no, no, we're going to go back. It's going to be wonderful. Things are going to get better and better tomorrow." Bet your bottom dollar. I mean, they're just singing about it. And here's the thing: he gets up and says, "Let me tell you what tomorrow looks like: worse than today." Okay? We look singed now, we're going to be burned to a crisp tomorrow. In other words, he's going back and he's citing it all.

All right, do you see that? The parables, when you actually look at them, if you look at where he is in the journey, they'll make pretty good sense. So I want you to notice that in Vision number one, that's the glimpse of the glory. Do you see that? The second vision, that vision, by the way, happened on July 13th of 593. How do I know that? Exactly. He tells you exactly what day it is. And every one of these dates is in the text. I didn't make up anything. So what I can tell you is it was July 13th of 593, and God showed me a vision of himself. I mean, how cool is that? By the way, I'd go back in chapter one and I'd write that in. That's what I would do with these. I would write them into the verses where you see the beginning of the vision. Now it's, uh, August, and it gets hot. And then September, and it is now a year later, and it's summertime, autumn. And I have a second vision, and the second vision is in chapters 8 through 11. And that will be, "God has left the building." It will be God leaving his temple. And what I want to do is finish out, uh, chapters 1, 2, and 3 now, and get finish out that first vision so that we can actually retire and say, "We know what the first vision is." Go to chapter 2.

Okay, in chapter one, we saw this incredible vision. And in chapter two, what do we see next? We're going to go from a vision to learning to hear the word of the Lord. And how do I know?

That's what it's going to be about because that's what it says. Look at verse two.

Then he said, "Son of Man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you." As he spoke to me, the spirit entered me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. When God speaks, it's not just the process of verbalization and communication. The spirit of God has to take whatever is in God's heart and insert it into your heart. It's more than just hearing something. He didn't just hear God. God burdened his heart with what God said.

And I'm not going to get words for this. How do I say this better? It, it's if God wants to speak. Okay, Ashley's sitting there. It's Sunday morning. We're in a text. I'm just doing a normal, like, message, whatever. But God really wants to speak to you. It's not just going to be that you heard certain words. It's something different. What is it? When you say, "God really spoke to me that day," what are you saying? It feels like he takes your heart and then just pulls it over. It's like, this is how I do it. Okay, he grabs, grabs your heart. He pulls it to where he wants it to be. He dumps something into you that wasn't there before. Where you go, "It's not just I got a new idea." It's, "Wow, God's really challenging me on this or convicting me of this." You know what I'm saying? It's something more.

I don't have words for this. I'm not going to do a good job. So I'm just going to say he's trying to describe to you that as this majestic God came toward him, when God spoke, he poured it into his heart. Then he said to me, "Son of Man, I am sending you to the sons of Israel to a rebellious people who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. I'm sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children. And you shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God.' As for them, whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious people, they will know that a prophet has been among them." I want you to go. I want you to be a prophet. They're going to know you're a prophet. And whether they listen or not is not relevant.

We've seen this before, haven't we? We've seen this with Isaiah's call. You know, and what was Isaiah's question right after God told him that? "How long do I have to do this?" Isaiah 6. No, it says verse, um, verse six. "And you, Son of Man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions." Okay, if you wanted to say to somebody, "It's, it's going to be really tough. It's going to really be uncomfortable," you'd say, "You're sitting on scorpions." I have done it. I slept on top of a scorpion nest near the Dan River in northern Israel and woke up with scorpion blisters all down my leg because I was stung repeatedly throughout the night and did not realize that's what was going on. Um, yeah. And the next day I move the tent and scorpions go everywhere, and I'm going, "I've got these big blisters all down the side of my leg." And I'm, I, I get up in the morning. I say, "Wow, what's going on here?" And my leg barely moves. In other words, it's really going to hurt. That's what he's trying to say.

And, and here's what it says. It says, um, "Neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence." Middle of verse six. "For they are a rebellious house. But you shall speak my words to them, whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious." He keeps sort of making a point about them. They're rebellious, obstinate, stubborn. Did you notice? Maybe they're rebellious. Maybe they won't listen because they're like, rebellious. And by the way, they're really rebellious. He's really underscoring the fact that the people aren't listening and probably won't.

"Now, you, Son of Man, listen to what I am speaking to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you." There, you see Revelation 10. "Take the scroll and eat it." Okay, eat what I am giving you. In other words, it has to go within you and become part of you. Do you all understand? I would write right next to this, "What was the symbol Jesus gave for the New Covenant?" "This is the New Covenant forged with my blood. Eat this bread, drink this cup." Why? It's got to be part of you. I need this to go into you.

Now look at verse nine. "Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me, and a scroll was in it. When he spread it out before me, it was written on the front and the back, and written on it were Lamentations, mourning, and woe." That's unusual to see a scroll that has written on both sides. But he says, "As they open it up, I saw on both sides of the scroll." Verse three. "Then he said to me, Chapter three. Then he said to me, 'Son of Man, eat what you find. Eat the scroll and go back and speak to the house of Israel.'" So does Ezekiel make the point that that which he is delivering to the children of Israel is the word of God? Does he not say, "By the way, this came exactly from God. I ingested it from him."

"So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll, and he said, 'Son of Man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.'" Then I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. Now, that's interesting. It was sweet as honey in my mouth. But then it says, "Then he said to me, 'Son of Man, go to the house of Israel. Speak my words to them, for you are not being sent to a people of unintelligent speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel.'" He's not saying you're not being sent to stupid people. He's saying, "I'm not sending you to the nations. I'm sending you to your own people in exile. They are people who know your language. They will be able to understand you."

Verse six. "Nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you." Now, there it is at the end of this. "I have sent you to those who should listen." Jesus, by the way, used similar wording in Matthew 11:21. He said, basically the same thing. "Yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate."

I think he's made this point already. "Behold, I've made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads." What is he saying? What does that mean? I made you just as tough as the people you're going up against. In fact, verse nine. "I've given you a hard head. I've made your forehead like flint." In other words, plan on taking a punch. Plan on getting hit hard. "Do not be afraid of them or dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house."

"Moreover, he said to me, 'Son of Man, take into your heart all my words which I will speak to you and listen closely.'" I want you to see in verse 10, it's not he ate them, but they were eaten and taken into his heart. Okay, it's not just fill your stomach with the word of God. It's take it into your heart. And then he said, "Go to the Exiles." Circle the word Exiles. That is the, that is the direction he has been called. Those are the people he's been called to. "To the sons of your people. Speak to them. Tell them, whether they listen or not, 'Thus says the Lord God.'"

Now I put a box around 12, 13, and 14 in my Bible. "Then the spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me, 'Blessed be the glory of the Lord in his place,' and I heard the sound of the wings of the living beings touching one another, and the sound of the wheels behind them, even a great rumbling sound." So the spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went, "embittered in the rage of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord was strong on me."

What is embittered in the rage of my spirit? In the presence of God, he picked up the emotion of God, the justice of God, the, in the, in the, in the aura of the righteousness of God. He picked up a sense of God's indignation over his holiness. I know that before lunch, there's no way I can do a good job at this. But I want you to just see if you can feel the end of these verses. God is not only hurt like Hosea when we sin, he's also indignant against his own righteousness. God is holy, and when I affront his holiness and I dethrone him in my life, I do something that is so wrong at a level of wrong that it's that same injustice. Have you ever been just had your stomach turned at injustice? It was just so wrong. What was happening? You watch something on human trafficking and you walk away, and your stomach is turning. That's what he says. He says, "So I was embittered in the rage of my spirit. I was like, everything inside of me was turned upside down. This is so wrong." Who we are, our rebellion is so heinous toward God, that's the sense.

Now, he's not going to take that attitude when he goes to preach. I'm not telling you to take that attitude. I'm saying at some point in your engaging of God, you go, "Wow, what a, what a wretched sinner I am." You know, the old hymns would call us wretched. You know, "for to save a wretch like me." We update them and we try to say, you know, "to save a person like me" because we don't want, we don't like to talk about our wretchedness. But there's a stench of our life, and, and he grabs that. Now, he grabs it not only for himself but for his people.

Verse 15. "Then I came to the Exiles who live beside the river Chebar in Tel Aviv, and I would underline Tel Aviv there because that's where we get its name, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them." Okay, this is the beginning of his career. I came and I sat there for seven days, and people were coming and going, going, "Get a bath." At the end of the seven days, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Son of Man, I have appointed you a Watchman to the house of Israel." And that's where I say he moves to the third stage. The first one was what he saw. Then what he heard. Now this is the commissioning to be a Watchman. This is, "I saw God. I, I heard him insert his word inside me. Now I'm called to go out and watch for others and for what is coming. Be a Watchman." You could say the word Guardian. He gets the job as a guardian to become a Watchman of the House of Israel.

"Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, warn them from me." So he becomes like a warning alert. This is kind of like a Judah alert, okay? And he's to do that whenever God calls him to do it. "When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him of him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way, which that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand." What does he say? If I tell you to say it, and I say, "Look him in the eye and tell him he's going to die," he'll die. But if you don't tell him, he'll die anyway, and it'll be on your head. It is your job to speak my word. Somewhere in the margin, put it down: "It is your job to speak my word. I will hold you responsible for the souls you don't speak to."

Yet, verse 19. "If you have warned the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered yourself." In other words, Ezekiel, your job is to do what I told you to do, or I'm going to hold it against you that you didn't. If you do what I told you to do, even if they don't listen and die and perish wickedly, that's not your problem because you did your job. Just do your job.

Verse 20 says again, "When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, I, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die. Since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand." However, if you've warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he will surely live because you, because he took warning, and you have delivered yourself.

"The hand of the Lord was on me there, and he said, 'Get up. Go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you.'" So I got up, I went out to the plain, and behold, the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory which I saw at the river Chebar, and I fell on my face. Before he begins now to give the next message, God's presence returns back to him.

"The spirit then entered me and made me stand on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, 'Go, shut yourself in your house. As for you, Son of Man, they will put ropes on you and bind you with them so that you cannot go out among them. Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth, and you will say to them, "Thus says the Lord: He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house."'"

So he says, "I want to do something. I want to send you to them, and I, I know what they're going to do. You're going to get there, and they're going to tie you up and stick you in a room, and you're going to be unable to speak. You're going to want to go, but you don't get to open your mouth until I tell you exactly what to say." And at that moment, you'll be able to speak, but you will be tied up, and they will refuse. And all of that is, I'm going to use your body as a symbol of their spirit. I'm going to tie you up because they are rebellious. It is their way of overtly saying, "I don't want God's word. I don't need God's word. I want to do what I want to do." You bring God's word, and I'll tie you up.

But notice that God doesn't only say that they will tie him up. God says, "And I will shut your mouth because I'm not going to let you say anything but what I tell you to say." So Ezekiel is no longer able to speak when he wants. His mouth will only work when he's ready to say what God says. How many of you would find this frustrating? Finally, they let you speak. You're stepping on my foot. You know, I mean, this has got to be a really hard thing to do. And yet God calls him.

All right, does everybody understand the call of Ezekiel? So that first vision actually happens over, uh, part one. Part two is almost a year later, the next summer. And, and as you grasp the whole thing, you're actually looking at something that is going to be a very big and powerful vision in his life. There's going to be another vision we're going to see in just a, after lunch. But to get you there from chapter 4 all the way up through chapter 8, chapter 4, 5, 6, and 7 starts a series of interesting things that God calls him to do.

I want you to know that, um, he's going to do eight different acts, and two of the acts are going to be recorded in the section after the vision in 8 through 11. But the rest of them, Act 1 through six, will be what we'll pour through in the next chapters right after lunch. Okay? Are you following the sense of the book? Here's what you should know already. You should be able to pick out three boxes. You should be able to tell me, 1 to 3 is his call. That 4 to 24 is the condemnation against God's people. That in 24, he gets a message about his wife going to die. That in, uh, 25 to 32, he gives people around God's people for two years judgment. And in verses 33 to 48, the consolation of God. After 33, when God tells him, "I need to retune your heart." Chapter one starts off with a heart that is called by the depth and the power and the majesty of God. Chapter 33, he's going to run into God's compassion, God's love, God's richness and fullness. And the last part of the book will sound different than the first part, and it will all be about the God he met and the message he was given. So that changes even the flavor of his life. Okay, that's, that's where we're heading.