ABC Sampler: Ezekiel's Revelation

And for those of you... I think I mentioned ABC Sampler. That's something... seems like we used to do more, but... the idea is not everybody can come to ABC. We do do a one-week program, usually in May or June, where people come to the home office and stay there, and we have five days of classes all day, and that gets pretty intense.

But we've tried to do this type of thing, where instructors go out and visit congregations, and it's... Mr. Antion came up with the name Sampler, because it's just a sampling. So we're taking excerpts from our classes, and presenting some of that to the congregation. So that's... what I did that... I mentioned that what I covered in the last hour was an excerpt from the Fundamentals of Theology class, that I've been teaching for the last few years now. The first class I ever taught at Ambassador was Major Prophets, and I'm still teaching it. I've looked for people that maybe I could hand it off to, although there's times I love it, and other times it seems a slog, because there's a lot of the Major Prophets. That's, you know, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and I always include Lamentations within that.

So I got to teach that, you know, when I was still teaching part-time, and I still do. So I want to pull out this one passage of this one vision by the prophet Ezekiel, and that... it's covered in chapters 8 through 11.

So it starts in chapter 8, and although it's four chapters, 8, 9, 10, 11, yeah...

It's one vision where God has given Ezekiel a special message, and I want to draw out some lessons that apply to us as well.

So normally when I'm teaching the class, I'll have done an overview. I always do what I call the five W's of each book, the who, what, why, where, when.

I'm not going to do that in too much detail, but it's worth realizing Ezekiel was one of the early captives that Nebuchadnezzar took away from Judah back to Babylon before he had finished conquering the nation.

Think of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Remember, they were taken before the temple was destroyed, and they got the equivalent of a college education and training to serve in the government.

Ezekiel was taken away at the same time, but he didn't get the nice treatment. He was out living in a prison camp, basically, with those who were doing the work.

But interestingly, Ezekiel and Daniel are contemporaries working at the same time in different places. By the way, Jeremiah is also a contemporary.

At the same time, he's back in Jerusalem doing his work. So, God has different people working in different places and times.

Ezekiel was a prophet. He was also of the priestly family. And there were a number of prophets who were also priests by being descended from Aaron.

We don't see him fulfilling the duties of a priest. Of course, he's not at the temple. But he has a lot of references to the temple and the priesthood in his writing, and maybe it's not a coincidence.

So, if you're at chapter 8, it says, So, he's not entirely clear, sixth year of what, but it might well be the sixth year since he was taken captive.

We believe he was probably about 25 years old when he was taken captive.

It's about five years after that that God starts to send him visions.

Those are covered early on in the book of Ezekiel.

It says he's in his house. I envision it as like a prison camp.

The children of Israel were taken, and they're like slave labor, but they're not living in a prison. They have certain freedoms.

There's probably a certain amount that's required of them, but they have certain liberties also.

He has a house, and others are there. It says the elders are there with him.

The elders come to hear God's word, it seems, because there's more than one place in the book where the elders come to him.

Some speculate, and it is just a speculation, that this might have been a prototype of what later developed into the synagogue system.

When the temple wasn't there anymore, Jewish communities went to a synagogue.

It's meant to be like what we say when we say congregation.

It doesn't refer to the building as much as the people who gather.

It could be gathering in someone's house or a special building.

There's a place later in Ezekiel where God tells them, They're coming to listen to you, but they're not respecting you.

They're coming to you like someone who has a beautiful voice that sings songs.

Which made me think of going to a Taylor Swift concert or something.

We don't want to go to God's ministers for that reason, but at any rate, they're there.

It says, So what we're going to see is God's message.

Let me keep reading.

Verse 2, He says, There was the likeness, like the appearance of fire, from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire from His waist and upward.

His and waist tells us there's a person, a humanoid form.

That looks like He's on fire.

This may have been an angel.

It may have been what we call the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

The angel of the Lord in some other places.

I'm not certain which.

I lean towards thinking that it was the one who became Christ, or as John 1.1 says, the word, but I'm not certain.

But He sees this image.

And by the way, I forgot, I wanted to reference Revelation 1, verses 13-15.

I'm not going to turn there, but in Revelation 1, John sees Christ glowing and bright.

In the book of Ezekiel, there are a number of parallels with the book of Revelation.

And in part of my introduction, if we were introducing the book, I'd mention several things that are in Ezekiel are also in Revelation.

We'll see. One of them is seeing caribbean, an image of God's throne, likeness of fire, Christ's voice sounding like many waters.

Ezekiel describes the river of life, and John later writes that in Revelation.

I could go on and on. There are a number of these parallels that I don't think are a coincidence.

But let's get back to this vision.

In verse 3, He stretched out the form of His hand and took me by a lock of my hair, so He's like this, and then flies away.

He lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me...

Let's emphasize this. In visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north of the inner gate.

So this is a vision. Ezekiel doesn't go anywhere.

We'll see at the end of chapter 11, He's still sitting there in His house with the elders in front of Him.

So God has given him this vision, so it's like He put on the 3D goggles, and He's seeing things that aren't really there as God's communicating.

And one of them comes to the north of Jerusalem at the gate, and He sees the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

It's an image of jealousy, and we're left to wonder what exactly that is.

But it seems it's certainly something to do with idolatry, and that'll become clear later in the vision that people are not worshipping God, they're worshipping idols, and indeed, worshipping the Son.

So this is some type of image that provokes God to jealousy, and God calls Himself a jealous God.

So some have said it's just some idol.

Because there's a reference later in this vision to Tammuz, I'll talk about that later, some think it might have been the symbol of Tammuz, which looks kind of like this, the tau, or what we would call the letter T. So some scholars think they just had a cross set up at the entrance to the city.

Which we would cite that to say, yeah, maybe we shouldn't be using a cross as a symbol of Christianity, which we don't. I don't want to condemn others who think it's doing something good.

But in any case, it's this vision that's not so good.

Let's go to verse 4.

So there's two things I want to emphasize here.

One is, what he's seeing now is like a vision that he saw on the plane.

This is referring to what happens in the first chapter of Ezekiel.

The first thing Ezekiel covers is seeing an image of God with what looks like these creatures that we find out in this chapter are caribim, who have four wings and four legs. And they're full of eyes.

It's something you'd see on UFOs from outer space if you watch the History Channel, where they're trying to figure out what these things are.

So he's being reminded of that.

And if we let the Bible interpret the Bible to understand as much as possible about caribim, we'd look at both of them.

I don't want to focus today on the caribim as much as I do. We understand they're a type of angel. They're servants of God, and can be kind of creepy-looking.

The thing I do want to emphasize there is that the glory of the God of Israel is there.

God's glory is there.

And many times that means God is there.

That could refer to God's presence.

There's a phrase they use in Hebrew that is called the God of Israel.

And it's called the God of Israel. God is there. That could refer to God's presence.

There's a phrase they use in Hebrew that is transliterated in English as the Shekinah.

S-H-E-K-I-N-I-A-H is one way it's transliterated.

The Shekinah, God's presence and power and glory, when God is really there.

Okay, so I might not be able to read all of this word for word, but I'll keep going.

I lift my eyes toward the north, the altar gate, image of jealousy in the entrance.

So he said to me, Son of Man, do you see what abominations the house of Israel commits here?

The latter part of verse 6 is important.

To make me go far away from my sanctuary.

Israel is worshipping other gods, and God is saying, this is going to make me leave my sanctuary, because I can't stand what they're doing.

If the Shekinah refers to God's presence, God is going to show in this vision, He's taking His presence and leaving.

That presence, meaning, sorry, I just thought of presents like Christmas presents, and that made me think of the Grinch.

I do this in class. Sometimes I distract myself.

Anyways, okay, so go far away from my sanctuary.

God is going to describe some of what He sees.

He brought me to the door. I looked. There's a hole. Dig through the hole.

I dug in. Go and you'll see more abominations.

I went in. Verse 10, saw all sorts of creeping, abominable beasts, and all idols of the house of Israel portrayed on the walls.

So these abominable beasts creeping, so it's unclean animals, and imagery that's been put on the walls, it seems, even of the temples.

And God had some imagery on His temple. He has like pomegranates and flowers and some caravim, but not these other creatures portrayed.

Verse 11, there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel.

So these elders, they're elders. They're leaders.

They should be foremost in proper worship of God.

That's what our elders should be doing, but instead they're leading in idolatry, leading people astray.

There in their midst stood Jeazaniah, the son of Shaphan.

We don't know much about Jeazaniah.

Jeazaniah. Shaphan, if this is the same one we saw earlier in the book of Jeremiah, or in the Kings, he was King Josiah, an officer under King Josiah, that helped him find the book of the law when Josiah had this great renovation.

So Shaphan seems to be somebody that helped bring revival of the true religion.

If Jeazaniah is his son, he's doing the opposite.

The father is not like son in this case.

In verse 12, Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark? Every man in the room of his idols? So they're hiding this idolatry. Oh, the Lord doesn't see us. He's forsaken the land. Verse 13, Come, you'll see greater things than they're doing. Brought me the door of the north gate of the Lord's house. To my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for tammuz.

The elders were in secret, the women doing it openly.

Who is tammuz?

Tammuz is connected in Greece. It was considered the husband, son, not Greece, Babylon, of Ishtar, Adonis, and Greek. We think this is tied back to Semiramis and Nimrod, the ancient story. Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the god, who we have reason to believe established false religion. His wife, Semiramis, basically Nimrod was killed, and Semiramis was pregnant. So, she claimed that the son, Tammuz, was Nimrod being reborn. It seems that the mother-son worship that we see prevalent in Orthodox churches takes its basis all the way back in ancient Mesopotamia.

According to the legend, Tammuz would die every year and go to the underworld for about six months. This is tied closely to the son worship, where you have the equinox, only the son seems to be dying and goes away, and then it comes back. Religious calendars have been built around this going all the way back. Some scholars even think the weeping for Tammuz is a forerunner of what is now called Lent in Orthodox teaching.

That period of weeping, preparing for the rebirth. So, if so, whether it's that or not, this is blatant idolatry. Devotion to a foreign God, not the God of Israel, not the God who inspired the books of the Bible, who led Israel out of Egypt. Let's go back to verse 15. He said to me, Son of Man, turn again, you'll see greater abominations than these. Ezekiel is still in a vision, but in verse 16, he goes to the inner court of the Lord's house there at the door of the temple.

So, he's at the door of the temple between the porch of the altar, or between the porch and the altar. So, the temple has the inner holy place where there's the table with the showbread, the menorah, the incense altar. Then behind the veil is the Ark of the Covenant.

In front of the temple, there's the bronze altar where you offer sacrifice. So, it seems in that area, there is this, what, 25 men with their backs to the temple of the Lord facing east, worshipping the Son. They turn their back on the true God, literally, and they're worshipping the Son. And God says to Ezekiel, have you seen this, O Son of Man?

Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit abominations which they commit here? So, it's bad enough with this false worship, but he's going to add, and that's something we'll come back to. Bad enough to worship idols, but also there's killing each other and taking advantage of each other. Think of the two tables in the Ten Commandments. Worship God, but also how to, well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

Love your neighbor as yourself. God always was concerned with both sides. One of the questions comes up was, they even put the branch to their nose. I'm going to be honest, I don't know what that means. Scholars have thought maybe it was part of the idol worship. Some think it was one of those figures of speech, like they're turning up their nose to God. We're not certain, but it seems like God wasn't happy about it. So, well, one other thing I was going to mention. If the women weeping for tammuz could be related to Lent, and I say could be, we're not certain, but the men worshipping the sun, we could make that into a sunrise service on Easter Sunday.

Again, the connections aren't clear, but it's obvious it's false religion. It's not worshipping the true God. And God says, from now on, even though they cry with a loud voice, I'm not going to hear them. It reminds me, about the same time as God is speaking to Jeremiah, God tells Jeremiah, don't pray for these people anymore for their good. And that always sobers me, because we're told to pray for leaders of our nation.

Pray for our nation. It seems that there might be a time when God says, okay, that's it. And I figuratively say, talk to the hand, because I'm not listening. It's what God is saying to that. So now we take action, chapter 9. He called out my hearing with a loud voice, let those who have charge of the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon. Suddenly six men came, each with a battle axe.

We believe these are actually angels, and they're assigned to watch over the city, because it doesn't seem that any fig, literal men would have the instructions here. One of them is wearing linen clothes and has a writer's ink corn. Okay, verse 3 says something important.

Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the carob where it had been to the threshold of the temple. If God's glory has been in the temple, and I could ask the question, has God's glory been in the temple? Let me give you a scriptural reference in 2 Chronicles, chapter 7, verses 1 and 2.

2 Chronicles 7, verses 1 and 2 is when King Solomon has this temple built, and he does a prayer of dedication and offers sacrifice, and it describes the Shekinah glory entering the temple. And it says it's so great the priest can't be in there. They have to go out. And God sends fire from heaven and burns up the offering. By the way, Exodus 40 describes the same thing for when the tabernacle was dedicated.

When Moses and Aaron, the high priest, had the first tabernacle built, again, God's Shekinah glory entered, and even Moses couldn't be there. But what we're seeing here is God's glory leaving. It's going over the threshold of the temple. Perhaps because he's telling these guys to go in and start killing. So God's presence is being removed, so it's suitable as a place for executions to take place.

Verse 4, the Lord said, Go through the midst of the city, the midst of Jerusalem. Put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations. So this mark on the forehead is for people who are upset about the bad things, people who want good things. Here's another parallel with Revelation. In Revelation 7, verse 3, there's an instruction to seal the servants of God on their foreheads.

Revelation 14, verse 1, speaking of the 144,000, says they have the Father's name written on their foreheads. Now, we could stop and question, what is this talking about? Is there an actual mark? I think it's more of a figure of speech, because what we need is God's Holy Spirit. We see the symbolism in our heads and our hands marking what we think and what we do. It can contrast with what? In Revelation, it contrasts with the mark of the beast that's in their forehead or on their hand.

You can have God's mark or the beast's mark. You can obey God and live his way or live the false way. Here, he's making a distinction of those who sigh and cry over the abominations. They want God's mark, God's way.

In verse 5, the other Jesus said, go after him, go after the guy that's doing the marking, and kill. Go after him and kill, and don't let your eyes spare or have pity. Utterly, display, old and young men, maidens, little children and women. Don't come near anyone on whom has the mark. And begin where? At my sanctuary, with the elders who were before the temple. We're going to start with the religious leaders. By the way, those 25 men with their backs to the temple worshiping, if they're there in the temple grounds, probably Levites, perhaps priests themselves.

Some people speculate that David set up four courses of the priesthood, and they came in turns. We know that the father of John the Baptist was taking his turn. Some say it was the 24 courses plus the high priest himself. That's a speculation, but it's one that makes a lot of sense. Could be the 25 leaders of religious worship are the most guilty, and they're the ones that suffer first. Talks about the high responsibility.

Where I ended the last session about being teachers of God's Word brings a high responsibility. Not one to shy away from, but one to keep in mind when doing the work. And are they saved by being in the temple?

Not in the least. I'm not going to turn there for the sake of time, but if you think of Jeremiah 7. Jeremiah 7 is described what's called the temple sermon or temple address. Where God has Jeremiah near about this time go to the temple and describe all of Israel's sins. And he says, you come in here and you say, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. We're delivered to do these things.

And God has Jeremiah tell him, go now to Shiloh, where I used to have my name and see what happened there. And it was all destruction. It wasn't there anymore. And God said it's going to be the same way with the temple. And the point is, being in God's temple is not a guarantee of safety.

Now I bring that out because we don't have a physical temple, but what do we have? We are the spiritual temple, as it says in Ephesians 2, verse 19, 1 Corinthians 3, 16, 1 Peter 4, 17. Good thing I had these written down. I would never have them in my memory.

But, you know, we're living stones in God's temple. But I remember here, actually, I remember this very clearly in the early and mid-90s. Because the thought was, when falsehood was being brought into the spiritual temple, the lesson was, hey, sitting in the seats at services of the worldwide Church of God doesn't guarantee any safety or deliverance. Having the mark, having God's name in your forehead, and not a literal ink mark, but living God's way, having God's Spirit is what's required. Not sitting in the right seat. I tell the students at ABC, being at ABC, being at the home office, that's not going to protect you.

And for these 25 men, they got killed first, being at the temple. Verse 7, he said, Defile the temple, fill the courts with the slain, go out. They went out and killed in that city. While they were there killing them and left alone, I, Ezekiel, fell on my face. Ah, Lord God! Will you destroy all the remnant of Israel, pouring out your fury in Jerusalem? God doesn't answer the question directly with a yes or no, but he describes why they deserve this punishment.

The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is great. The land is full of bloodshed, city full of perversity. He doesn't say they're worshipping false idols, although he could have, but here he calls to mind how they're treating each other, bloodshed and perversity. They say the Lord is forsoking the land. He doesn't see. As for me, God, my eye will neither spare nor will I have pity. I'll recompense their deeds on their own head. As a man sows, he will surely weep. Just then the man clothed in linen with the inkhorn reported back, done as you commanded. Okay, verse 10. I looked there in that firmament. Well, he doesn't describe the firmament. This word could mean a platform or an expanse or a space. There appeared something like a sapphire stone having the appearance of the likeness of a throne. Okay, now we get into the carob. He spoke to the man, clothed with linen, go among the wheels under the carob, put your hand in the coals of fire. And here, this relates to the first chapter where he saw these four creatures, carobim, and they each... He says they have a torso, but you get the feeling there's sort of a bovine appearance, but they each have four faces. One's the face of an eagle, a man, a lion, and a bull, is what we see in chapter one. In this chapter... Am I looking at the right place? If you look ahead to verse 14, each one had four faces. The first face was the face of a carob, second the face of a man, third of a lion, third of an eagle. So the face of a carob is equated with the face of an ox or a bull, which I find intriguing. Does that mean it's its primary face? If it has a primary face? I don't know, but there's a famous carob in the Old Testament, actually one that appears in Ezekiel as someone who turned bad. I'm thinking of Ezekiel 28, the one who was the anointed carob who covers, who was cast out, that we know as Satan. And you can tie that to Isaiah 14. It makes me wonder if Satan was a carob, if they look like bulls. Is that the reason cow or bull worship has been so prominent, both in biblical history and otherwise? Satan wants to be worshipped. I think that is true, and that's the reason. It's slightly speculative, but either way it goes to show God made some pretty interesting creatures.

It says they're full of eyes and they've got wings. I can't imagine trying to describe this, let alone paint a picture. Plus, they've got wheels. And it says there's one a wheel, and it's like a wheel within a wheel. And it's got eyes all over, and where it goes, they go. And they go where it goes. What in the world? And I wonder, is it three-dimensional? When I imagine, I think, almost like a gyroscope.

And I say, well, I don't know that God needs these things. It's not like, because I've heard what's described in Ezekiel as God's portable throne. It's like God's coup de ville that he uses to go cruising.

Maybe. I speculate, because one day it hit me, it's like, does God have a permanent throne and then a portable throne? And then I thought, if you're God, is anything not portable? Can't you take whatever you want? And I'm being silly a little bit, but it's worth noting, this seems to be, though, describing angels that are in God's presence. And although I don't know if they're the same, and you can make a good argument that they're not, in Revelation, when John sees God's throne, what does he see there? He sees four creatures that are saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, and they seem to be full of eyes. Is it the same four? Possibly it is, possibly it's not. But there's only a few places in the Bible where God, like Daresom and Mealy, says He pulls back the curtain a little, and you get to see a little what's there. And I think maybe He doesn't show us more, because we just couldn't get it. I read this in Ezekiel 10, and I'm not sure if I get it. It's a wheel within the middle of a wheel.

They can go in a straight line wherever they go, because they've got faces every direction, so they don't have to turn like we do to be able to see. I don't know if that means they can't make a curve. I don't know why not. In verse 13, it says, the wheels were called in my hearing, wheel. But the word that the Hebrew word is one that has different meanings. Some people say it means they made a wheel sound or a whirring sound. Some people have speculated, because some places we see the description of these beings with four wings, and others say six wings. And then we could say, are they different creatures altogether? I've read a speculation that it's kind of like a hummingbird. Have you ever seen an image of a hummingbird flying? And it just looks like a wheel, some whirring beside it. Did Ezekiel see something like that?

Notice I'm putting question marks at the end of a lot of these things, because I don't know the answers. But this happens, so I want to move on to verse 15. After we describe all this, it says, the carobim were lifted up, and this was the living creature I saw by the river Kebar. By the way, that's in chapter 1. I want to re-emphasize. He said, I saw these things before, and that's what he means in chapter 1.

Verse 17, when the carobim went, the wheels went beside them. The carobim lifted up their wings to mount up from earth. The wheels didn't turn from beside them. Verse 17, when the carobim stood still, they stood still. Others lifted up, the others lifted up. Sorry, I'm trying to get to verse 18. Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the carobim. The carobim lifted up their wings, mounted up from earth in my sight. The carobim went out, and the wheels were beside them. They stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord's house. The glory of the Lord, God of Israel, was above them. That's where I say there's a progression here that I think might be one of the main points of this. Or at least it's a point that's worth us noting. Back in chapter 8, verse 4, we saw the glory of the God of Israel was there. I tied it all the way back to when the temple was built and the Shekinah glory entered. In chapter 9, verse 3, we saw the glory seemed to move to the threshold. In chapter 10, verse 4, to turn back a page, it pauses over the threshold. But here in verse 18, it's lifted up. In verse 19, it's above these carobim. Let's look ahead to see where it's going to end up so I don't lose my train of thought. Chapter 11, verse 23, near the end of this, chapter 11, verse 23, The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, stood on the mountain on the east side of the city. The mountain on the east side is the Mount of Olives. We see God taking the Shekinah glory out of the temple and out of Jerusalem altogether. He's gone. He's not there anymore. Now, I said that Ezekiel was contemporary with Daniel. What's the most famous vision that Daniel had, if we remember? Well, he had a lot of visions, but I'm thinking of, remember when he had to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream? Head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, a progression of Gentile kingdoms that God was going to have rule the section of the world. And that happens at about the same time. It's like God says, I'm working with Israel, I'm working with Israel and Judah. Now I'm done working with them. I'm going to let the Gentiles have their time when God removes his glory. But he will start calling a church. We don't want to forget that we are the spiritual temple. But in the physical way of doing things, things have changed. And that's what we see through the end of the chapter he describes more about the Caribbean. So let's move on because we're still in this vision, Chapter 11. Spirit lifted me up, brought me to the east gate of the Lord's house. There at the door of the gate were twenty-five men, among whom was Jeazani the son of Azur. By the way, this is a different Jeazaniya. The other one was the son of Shaphan. Jeazaniya must have been a common name then. Like John, or Chris, or Stephen, right? Not Frank. You don't hear that one a lot. But lots of Jeazaniyas. Anyways, sorry I'm being silly. And they say, the time is not near to build the house. The city is the cauldron and we are the meat. That's a weird thing to say. It seems to be drawing on a common figure of speech at the time.

This city is like an iron wall and we're safe inside. God is going to contradict this. I'll come back, but in verse 7 God says, "...you're slain whom you've laid in its midst. They are the meat and the city is the cauldron." So God is saying, yeah, you think you're meat that's safe inside? No, you're going to be dead meat. Which is a pretty crude thing, but God has been telling them, hey, you're getting what you sowed you're going to reap. So God is telling them, forget that. By the way, at the beginning of verse 3 they say, it's time, the time is not near to build houses. I think it's Jeremiah chapter 29, or right about that point, where God has Jeremiah send a letter to the people that are captive in Babylon. And what does he tell them? Build houses. Settle down. You're going to be there a long time, 70 years, in fact, and then I'll bring you back. So this might be a response, because they're saying, no, it's not time to build houses. There were false prophets in Jeremiah saying, oh, the captives are going to come back within two years. God had Jeremiah go confront one of them and say, you're going to be dead before the end of the year. And the guy was dead before the end of the month. So God is done messing around with these guys. And it's interesting how you can see the different parts fit together. But anyways, I'll mention one other thing fitting together in verse 5. The Spirit of the Lord fell upon me and said, speak, thus says the Lord. Earlier in the book of Ezekiel, God made Ezekiel mute. He wasn't able to speak unless God specifically gave him a message. So this is actually a case where Ezekiel can't say anything until God opens his mouth and lets him speak. So he has him do that. Later on in the book, God tells Ezekiel, when you get news that Jerusalem has been conquered, I'll lift the mutinous and you can speak. And the book of Ezekiel describes that happening. So I just want to note that when he says speak, it's a bigger deal than we might attribute it to otherwise. Anyways, basically, you're dead meat. You feared the sword. Verse 8, I'll bring the sword.

I'll bring you out of its midst. Verse 10, you'll fall by the sword. I'll judge you at the border of Israel and you'll know that I am the Lord. Okay, I'm going to skip ahead because God is describing basically punishment and the fact that they deserve this punishment. I want to go to verse 16. Thus says the Lord God, although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, although I've scattered them, that's the people of Judah, and we could say Israel before that, scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they've gone. I love this. God is saying, okay, I'm scattering you, but wherever you go, I'll be there. That's a principle. I bring this out. I love the phrasing where he says, I'm scattering you, yet I will be a sanctuary. You know where I'm going. I brought him with me. Because of the yet I, I thought it, that's the same way we say Yeti, spelling. I think if this is a symbol, I think I got to your years when the Yeti first came on. I call that the principle of the great Yet I. Yeti is just a fun little toy. But God saying, yet I, means I will punish you, yet I still love you. Yet I will take care of you. I'm going to have a way to bring you back. We could tie that all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God sent Adam and Eve out and said, mankind, you're on your own. Make up your own ways. Make up your own religions. But God still planned to send Jesus Christ. The sacrifice slain from the foundation of the world. The great Yeti always was there and always will be. God's love never leaves us. And that's a promise we can count on. And we see it over and over again in the prophets, where God is promising this great destruction. Yet he's saying, I'm going to take care of you. And he looks ahead to the millennium in verse 17 and says, therefore say, thus says the Lord God, I'll gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you've been scattered. They'll go there. I'll take away its detestable things. Verse 19, I'll give them one heart. I'll put a new spirit within them. You could tie that to the Book of Joel, chapter 2. Joel 2, verses 28 and 29, where God says, I'll pour out my spirit. And your young men would dream dreams. Your old men will see visions. Or maybe it's the other way around. But this is looking ahead, we believed, when Christ returns and brings the millennium. So all that destruction, but the great Yeti is there. And God says, I've got unfinished business with the children of Israel. I'm going to literally bring them back to this piece of real estate and work with them there. And give them the Holy Spirit. In verse 20, that they may walk in my statutes, keep my judgments and do them. They'll be my people and I'll be their God. I'm going to talk about the recompense, but I do want to wrap up the chapter. And I've got one thing to add to this, but verse 22 says, the carobim lifted their wings with the wheels beside them. The glory of the God of Israel was high above them. The glory of the God of Israel went from the midst of the city.

I read this earlier. So God removes his glory because he's going to let Jerusalem fall. He's going to let Nebuchadnezzar destroy the temple. Yet God has a plan that's going to make it okay. He would be a little sanctuary for them wherever they might go. And he's there available for us. And the end, verse 24 says, the Spirit took me and brought me in a vision of God to Chaldea. And the vision that I'd seen went from me. So I spoke to those. So suddenly he's there back in his house that the elders were looking at. And imagine they're looking and poking. Ezekiel, are you in there? What's going on? And suddenly he's back. And I wonder, maybe it's like TV and movies where it's only been a second for the people there, but he's had all this time. I don't know. I'm just guessing about that. But if you want to turn ahead to chapter 40 of Ezekiel, because I think there's a physical correspondence, not just with the spiritual temple. Ezekiel is given another vision. And this is, what was it? The sixth year when we started in chapter 8? In chapter 40, it's the 25th year of our captivity. 19 years later. Now, we used to talk about 19-year time cycles a lot. I don't know if this has to do with that, but quite a few years later, it's the 10th day of the month, 14th year, after the city was captured. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he took me there. Where? We'll see. In visions of God, he took me to the land of Israel. So many years after Jerusalem has been destroyed, you know, when the Babylonians conquered the city, destroyed the temple, God has given Ezekiel a vision of going back there. And he's going to see a new city. Again, here's another parallel with Revelation, perhaps like the new Jerusalem coming down. And there's a lot of description of cubits and furlongs and all that. If you look in chapter 41, I'm just going to skip ahead to the part I want to cover. 41, verse 1, he says, he brought me into the sanctuary and measured. Sanctuary is often a word for temple. And in verse 5 of chapter 41, it says, he measured the wall of the temple. So we're talking about the temple. It's a new temple. Scholars will discuss and disagree over whether the temple we see in the end of Ezekiel is for the millennium, or the great white throne judgment, or after. I tend to not think after because at the end of Revelation it says they don't need a temple. Because God is there. So this seems to be the millennium or what we call the great white throne judgment. For our purposes here, we don't have to know. But there's a new temple. Let's go to chapter 43.

Ezekiel says, afterwards he brought me to the gate that faces towards the east and behold. The glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the voice of many waters. And that corresponds with something we see in Revelation. It was the appearance of a vision which I saw, like the vision which I saw, when I came to destroy the city.

Ezekiel didn't actually destroy the city, but he had a vision. The vision he's referring to here in chapter 43 verse 3 is the vision we just covered in Ezekiel 8 through 11. So he's saying, I saw God's glory like that glory. And in verse 4, The glory of the Lord came into the temple by the way of the east. The Spirit lifted me up, brought me to the inner court, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

I love the closure. We spent time showing how God took his glory away. Talk to the hand. I'm not listening to you guys. I'm not working with you guys. There's going to be death and destruction, but it doesn't stay that way. God brings his glory back. He's been a little sanctuary for his people wherever they might be, all of the time in between. But God wants to have a temple. He says, I'm going to bring the descendants of Israel back to this piece of real estate, and they're going to worship me. Which brings a question. He's going to describe a lot about animal sacrifice, where people say, why would you do animal sacrifice after Christ's sacrifice? And we don't know for sure the answer. There's good speculation. One of which might be to learn that sin causes suffering and death. Another one might be, I'm going to make the Israelites do what they never did do properly before, and maybe other reasons. But I want to focus on God bringing his glory back. The results of sin, which is death, destruction, and God removing his glory, those results are going to be undone. There's going to be God's presence. There's going to be proper worship of God. And in verse 7, he says, he said to me, Son of Man, this is the place of my throne. This is going to be where the seat of God's government, we've said for many years, partly because of what it says here, Jerusalem is going to be the capital of world government. Jesus Christ will be King of kings and Lord of lords in Jerusalem. And we say that because the Bible says it. It's right there. And I think that's just really cool. I'm surprised how many times in class I come down to saying, isn't that cool? I need to have a better way of phrasing it, but I think it is amazing and wonderful. I think that's a perfect, a good way of saying it. Okay, good. I thought you were going to have a better way for me. But if you're okay with that.

Okay, we're at, actually, we started a little late, so I want to go to the very end of the chapter, something that I think is interesting because we've been talking about God's presence. You know, and that's very important. And as you read this last part of Ezekiel, it's describing the temple, the city, where, we're sure it's Jerusalem, but it never says it.

Actually, at the start of this vision, he said, visions of God, he took me there. And I said, where? I like this at the very last verse of the book. It says, all the way around 18,000 cubits, and the name of the city from that day shall be the Lord is there. So instead of Jerusalem, it seems there's a new name. God's there. That's where God is.

We saw God's presence was there, and it was removed, but God plans to put it back.

And tie that to us spiritually. If we're the spiritual temple of God, we are that because of God's presence, because of the Holy Spirit being in us. And we believe that fully. The Bible, I'm not going to turn to the Scriptures, but when we're baptized and hands are laid on us, the Spirit of God dwells in us.

Christ dwells in us through that Spirit, and God wants it to be that way.

Maybe we sometimes drift from Him, but there's the Great Yet Eye. He never gives up on us.

His mercy and His love is always there, and He wants His presence to be here in us.

Like we said, how cool is that? What could be better than that?

And there's a lot in some of these fairly short visions.

So I've taken this right up to one o'clock. I think we're supposed to have a break and have lunch.

I'll make you one problem. I don't know for sure what all Mr. Dean will say, but he tends to be slower and clearer than I am.

So we'll look forward to hearing him later in the rest of the day. Thanks very much for your time and attention.

And I'm going to...