Bible Study: April 24, 2024

Yeah, so it's probably fitting that we are in the Book of Ezekiel during these days of Unleavened Bread. As I said before, the study began. I sure hope everyone had a very meaningful Passover and a very good start to the days of Unleavened Bread. This is a meaningful time of year. So much has happened. So much happens that's pictured by the days of Unleavened Bread. It's certainly during Christ's time in Israel, ancient Israel's time. When we think about our lives and everything God has done for us, these days should take on additional meaning and give us additional reason to be committed to God in everything we do, to draw even closer to Him and to just firmly commit to Him and take in always of the Unleavened Bread of Sincerity of Truth, pulling out of the world and away from the world more and more. As we go through the Book of Ezekiel, God talks about His people, how they have departed from Him.

And the punishment and the consequences of their sin and pulling away from Him and not doing what He said. We're going to read tonight some pretty daunting verses when you really study them and realize God means what He says. What He says in these verses in Ezekiel 5 and 6 are really going to happen. And it's going to happen because a nation, the nations that He has so richly blessed, His people Israel, who have turned away from Him. And as we watch everything going on in the world, the Romans today, we see even more and more everyone or the nations of Israel pulling away from Him. So last time, you'll recall, just to remind us, Ezekiel has been called to be a prophet of God. God calls him, gives him a vision of the kingdom, tells him what he is going to say. But last week, when we looked at chapters 3 and 4, God had Ezekiel act out some of the messages. Israel and Judah just had a habit of not listening to the prophets that were sent to them. So God used another message of trying to reach them. And you recall, Ezekiel had a clay that he built a figure on of a siege of Jerusalem and how it would be conquered. He had Ezekiel lay on one side for 390 days, picturing the punishment of Israel, and then another 40 days picturing Judah.

And as we came into chapter 5, Ezekiel was doing that. And we came down through the first part of chapter 5, where God even had him take out, cut off some of his hair, shave his head, a sign of humility, and cast one-third of the hair in three directions. One was going to be as pestilence, one for famine, one for sword. Well, one for famine and pestilence. One would be killed by the sword, one would be taken captive. And then remember that remnant that he kept in his garment.

And then some of them from that garment were cast into the fire. Which kind of picture is the great tribulation to come. We finished last week with verse 6, but let's look at verse 6 again in chapter 5, because in it then God summarizes everything we've read so far. And begins verse 7, was a therefore. That means, given everything you've read before this, this is where we are. So Ezekiel 5 and verse 6, she, speaking of Israel, has rebelled against my judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations and against my statutes more than the countries that are all around her. And that's a key word, more. God says they're sinful than the nations that surround them, for they have refused my judgments and they have not walked in my statutes. And you remember that many times in the first four chapters there, God told Ezekiel, they're not going to listen to you. They're going to refuse what you have to say. They reject me. They're going to reject you too.

And then therefore, verse 7, therefore, thus says the Lord God, because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, because you have not walked in my statutes, nor kept my judgments, nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you. Therefore, God says again, I even I am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. So I am going to pull up. A few of you said last week that the PowerPoint was helpful, so I am going to pull up a PowerPoint. It's not as complete as last time, but maybe, because we are going to talk about a few verses, and maybe this will happen, maybe this will help you see where I'm going, where are some of these things, and list for you some of the verses that we're going to be turning to. Now, this is Ezekiel 5-6. I guess I could have started there if I didn't, but let's go on. We're in Ezekiel 5. So these are kind of the corresponding things we'll talk about as we read through some of the verses here coming up. We just read verse 7, where God said, because you haven't done any of these things I've asked you to, in fact, you're worse than the nations around you. This is what's going to happen to you. So if you'll keep your finger there in Ezekiel 5, let's go back to Psalm 81. Here we have God talking about the same thing.

This is a Psalm there where God is just saying, if my people would just listen to me, if they would just listen to me, he always wants to do well by them, but it's his people, and it's you and me, and it's Israel, the nations that he has so recently blessed that just refuse what he has to say. Psalm 81 and verse 8 says, Oh Israel, if you will just listen to me, he says, there shall be no foreign God among you. You know, God said no other gods before him, nor shall you worship any foreign God. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. The very time that we've just been talking about here in the last days as we've gone through the days of my love of bread. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill you with the best action someone's got there. If they've got your own, you might want to mute it. But my people, he says in verse 11, would not heed my voice, and Israel would have none of me. So I gave them over to their stubborn heart to walk in their own councils. Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries. If they would just, as it says in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 14, if they would just turn to me, God says. But they don't. I read those verses in Psalm 81. It reminds me of what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 23. Before he gave the Olivet prophecy, before he was arrested, and he knew what was going to happen to him, and he said in Matthew 23, 37, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if all I wanted to do was gather you as a hen gathers their chicks, I just wanted to protect you. I just wanted to give you the good things of life, but you wouldn't have it. You wouldn't have it. And that's kind of the theme of chapters 5 and 6 here. And as we go through the book of Ezekiel, Israel just won't do what God says to do. And it's a shame. And if we would all learn to just do what God said, how much better, you know, life would be. You know, when God says here that Israel, the nations around Israel, that they were more sinful than the nations around them, what he's talking about is they had their foreign gods. They weren't the true God. They had their foreign gods, but they obeyed their foreign or false gods more than Israel obeyed the true God. So if their false gods said this or did that or said, sacrifice your children to me, they did it. That was all. Here's God who's given them everything, and they won't obey him. And that's what he's talking about there. He'll even work on the people around you because you don't even listen to me. So if we go into verse 9, on to verse 9 then, verse 9 it says, And I will do among you, which I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. You know, when you hear what I'm going to do among you that I've never done before and never will do again, we think of Christ's words in Matthew 24, verse 21, where he talks about the Great Tribulation. He says, There will be great tribulation, such as what has not been since the beginning of the world, no, nor ever will be. It's because of the way the people have responded to God and don't obey him, don't follow him, don't do anything that he says. And so when he talks about this, this takes us into that realm because he's saying there's a time coming that has never been like it before, and it won't ever be a time like that again.

And then he gives in verse 9 the reason why, because of all your abominations, because of all your abominations. And I think we should stop for a moment and just look at that word abominations, because throughout chapters 5 and 6, we see that word show up many times.

Often when we think of abominations, we think of just these awful things. We might think of child sacrifice. Certainly that is an abomination to God. We might think of any other number of things that people might do that God says don't do clearly, and those that are abomination to him. But when we read through the Bible and the very same Hebrew word that's translated abominations here in Ezekiel 5 and 6, when you look at it in accordance and look at other verses where God uses the exact same word, we learn something about what abominations are to him. I won't go through Leviticus 18, but you can read through that. In that chapter, God talks about a number of sexual perversities and relationship problems between husbands and wives and divorce and sisters in law and all these other situations that God details there. He calls all of them abominations before him. Let's look at a few of the verses here in Deuteronomy 7. Of course, some of those things that in Leviticus 18 would certainly apply to our world today when God looks and sees what's going on in our nation and the nations of Israel. It's quite the thing and even beyond some of what it says in Leviticus 18, look at Deuteronomy 7 verses 25 and 26 and just look at the word abominations and see what God says. He says in verse 25 of Deuteronomy 7, you shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire. So he's talking about when you go into a land and or when you come into the church and God calls you out of the world, don't continue worshiping the same guy as you did before. God has called you to worship him. Get rid of them, is what he's saying. You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them. Don't take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. So don't think, you know, that artifact, idol, icon, whatever it is, oh, I'll melt it down or whatever it is. Don't covet those things. Just get it out of your life. Don't be ensnared by it. Verse 26, he says, and you shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing. So there's one abomination, things. If we hold on to those things and those icons or those things that we have from our prior religion that we've maybe falsely worshipped in violation of, you know, the Second Commandment, you shall have no carved images before me. Let's look at Deuteronomy 12. Deuteronomy 12 is, you know, I think this is probably the memory verses for most of us, but, you know, again, looking and much many of these are about idolatry. Understanding that idolatry is not just following behind a statue of Baal, but anything that we worship, anything that we trust in more than God, that we put our reliance and our hope in. So in Deuteronomy 12 verse 29, God says, "...with the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land." That would be, God calls us out of the world, we no longer live in the world. "...take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you don't inquire after their gods, saying, well, how did they serve their gods? I will do likewise." You know, what, did they sacrifice their children? Well, then let's do the same thing.

Did they celebrate some pagan? Did they have some kind of pagan ritual that they did to honor their gods? God says, well, don't take that upon yourself. And then he says, don't do that. "...you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Lord which he hates they have done to their gods, for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." What it says then, verse 32, that's just why we keep God's holy days and not the days of the world, even though they say they're of God. They are not. They are not of God's. They're the way other nations and other cultures have worshiped their gods, but isn't the way that God said to worship him. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. Don't add to it, and don't take away from it. Worship me and follow me exactly according to the words that I give you in this book of the truth that he's given us, his word. Deuteronomy 14, verse 3, here he talks about clean and unclean meats, and he lists all of them in Leviticus 11 as well, but he goes through Deuteronomy 14, and he mentions these things. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but he goes, you shall not eat any detestable thing. Now, the translator is there, but the original Hebrew word is the same word that was used in Ezekiel 5 that we've been reading, and probably in your margin-like mind it says, you shall not eat any abominable thing. So God says even those things, if he says don't do it, don't do it, because there's a reason he says don't do it, and we show our faith and love and commitment to him by following exactly what he has to say.

Deuteronomy 17, and verse 1, talking about sacrifices in the Old Testament, but we can apply this to ourselves as well, because when we come before God, we give of our best to him, is what he's saying here in this verse. You shall not sacrifice the Lord your God, a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

There's an old hymn that we used to sing years ago in the church, give of your best to the master. Remember that song? That's what God is saying. Don't give him the stuff he would throw away anyway, and think of doing God a favor. Give the best. Show him. Show him your commitment to him, that you honor him with your substance, and that you would bring the best to him. He commanded Israel, don't give me the things that are imperfect. Bring to me the best that you are sacrificing to me.

Show me, he would say, what you think of me. Let's go over to the book. There's many more. You can do a study of that on yourself. Just type it right down to what it is. It is 84, 41, or something like this, Strong's number, but you can look that up. In the Proverbs, Book of Wisdom, there are several things that God calls abominations as well. Let's look at Proverbs 6 and verse 16. 16. These six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to him. These are included in those things that God is talking about, Ezekiel 5 and 6. These are abominations, a proud look, a lagging tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. Well, that probably strikes. We could probably look at that list and think, whoa, there's something about me that maybe I need to be looking at to make sure God doesn't look at something I'm doing or thinking as an abomination. During these days of Unleavened Bread, think, none of those things could be part of me like they are part of what God is talking about in Ezekiel 5. A couple more. Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11 and verse 1.

Dishonor scales. God is talking about honesty and business. When we say something, don't overestimate what the value of something is or all these things. Dishonor scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just wait is the light. Sell. Do what you need to do. Be honest. Give it your best. Just don't be dishonest in what you are doing and try to sell something for what it isn't worth. And then finally, Proverbs 16.25. This one's there. Again, that's where the days of Unleavened Bread are. We talk about leavening popping up, and we have to be very aware of the leavening that puffs up us up and the pride that we would have. In chapter 16 of Proverbs 25, it says, a proud look is what I was looking at. Sorry about that. But that's a good verse, too. There is a way that seems right to a man, but it says it's the way it does. I've had something else in my mind, and I put down the wrong verse. It's verse 18. That's it, but actually it talks about an abomination in that. I think I wrote it down in my notes here, too. 16.5, maybe? 12. Yeah, it is. 16.5. Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the eternal. Though they join forces, none will go unpunished.

So that's just a few of them. We can look at that and say, whoa, I might even be guilty of some abominations here when I look at abomination the way that the Bible describes it.

It gives us something to consider here. If we go back to Ezekiel 5 with that in mind, we can continue on to that verse and see what God is talking about. I'm going to read it again, just as we did some things there. I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again because of all of your abominations, all those things like the things we just read about. Then in verses 10 to 17, he does go into quite a bit of detail about what it is going to be like. Verse 10 says, "'Therefore, fathers shall eat their sons in their midst, sons shall eat their fathers, and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain, I will scatter to all the winds.'" So we get into these things, and there's other places in the Bible that God talks about that the famine and the hunger is going to be so severe in the nation that people would actually eat each other. It's just a very hard thing to even imagine what would happen. But I go back five years in my time, and it would have been very hard for me to imagine the scope of things that we have going on and the country that we live in today with all the gender identity issue and what children are being taught and everything else that you throw into it. I would have had a hard time imagining it, so when God says it's going to happen, it's going to happen.

And His Word, you know, we'll read a little bit later, it's just exactly what He says. I do have a note there. Let's look at Jeremiah. Oh, I have it out there, too. I guess I have it on the wrong verse. Jeremiah 19. Jeremiah is just a couple books back. Jeremiah, you know, remember, is a contemporary of Ezekiel. He was prophesying in Jerusalem while Ezekiel was in Babylon. Remember, by the river Kbar there. But God, you know, God gives the same message to all of His prophets. It's the same message. In verse 9 of chapter 19, we see Jeremiah saying the same thing. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege. Remember, we talked about a siege from last week when Ezekiel was making that kind of drama thing on that piece of clay that he did. The siege that went in there and how in ancient days people would use that siege to starve out their opponents and to crash through the walls with those battering rams. So everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair. Because things will be so bad, so bad, you know, that that's what will drive people to do. I won't take the time to read around me 28 verses 52 and 53 are up there on your screen. But you can read that later. You'll remember Deuteronomy 28 is a list of the blessings and cursings that God will give to people. And in those cursings for a nation or people that depart from God, he says the very same things there. That they that, you know, this eating each other because the famine is going to be so severe. So let's go back here to Ezekiel.

Let me see. We're in verse 10 verse 11. Therefore, therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, surely God says it's going to happen. So he kind of throws one of those adverbs in there again. Surely because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, now with all your abominations, there's that word again. Remember, God is building a temple in you and me. So when he's talking about this and the sanctuary, the physical one back then, he's talking about us now. What is in your mind? What is in your heart? What is in your homes? What is in where you dwell, where God is supposed to be dwelling in us?

Therefore, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore, I will also diminish you. I will make you less. I've blessed you richly, God says, but I can take it away too when you don't follow me. Blessings disappear. Therefore, I will diminish you. My eye will not spare, God says, nor will I have any pity. Harsh words, but he is just letting people have a due recompense for what their actions are. They have shown God no approval or no recognition at all.

They just ignore him. They just go further and further away from him. So he says, it will be so for you. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. Verse 12. We read this last week in conjunction with the first few verses there of chapter 5. One third of you will die of the nestle once and be consumed with famine in your midst.

One third shall fall by the sword all around you, and I will scatter another third to all the winds and withdraw at a sword after them. It's going to be tough, tough times ahead for a nation that departs from God and gets to the point where God knows they will not turn back. He's patient. He's kind. He waits, but there is a time where he knows, you know, that there is no, that they won't turn back.

Verse 13. Thus shall my anger be spent, God says, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be avenged, because he takes it very personally, as he should. He has blessed us richly.

You know, we read back in Isaiah, we are the children of promise. These lands are the children of promise through Isaac and through Joseph and Abraham, descendants of his. And he's blessed us richly. He's given us everything, and then we have treated him so ungraciously. I will cause my fury to rest upon you, and I will be avenged.

And then we see another phrase that we see a lot throughout chapters 5 and 6. So notice how many times God says it. Not because he's an evil God. It's not because he hates mankind. He still loves mankind. He still has the purpose in mind for them. He still wants them to repent. He still wants them to turn back to him. He still wants to give eternal life. He still wants them to be in his kingdom and to live forever and work with him. But he knows they won't do it without pain. They have to realize who he is. They will know that I am the Lord, that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.

He's eager, and he will do it with a vengeance, and he will make it be. And people will know, whoa, this is God. This is only of God. We have angered him. They will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal when I have spent my fury upon them. We don't ever want to feel God's fury. Much better to simply yield to him and to continually ask him, are there abominations in my life? False, weaknesses, sins that I need to weed out so that we become like him, rather than incurring his wrath and incurring his fury and having to live through some of these things that he would have us do.

He doesn't want to do it, but he knows it's the only way people will turn back to him. Moreover, verse 14, I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you in the sight of all who pass by. No nation more visible on earth today than America, from Britain, Canada, Australia. The eyes of the world are on those nations. We are the have nations of the world. God has richly blessed us, and there are people who hate us because of what we have, and increasingly so, not realizing the reason we have them, not because of any partiality, but because of what God has done and what our forefathers did, and showing their faith to God and him just pouring their blessings on.

No one more visible, but he says, what's going to happen to you? You will be an astonishment to the world, but they see what's happened to you. It'll be what happened. How could that great nation have fallen like that? And you know, you look what's going on in America today, and we look at our standing around the world.

You see all the problems that we have internally that we're bringing upon ourselves with, you name it, there's everything, right? There's the whole thing could crumble at any time, and I'm sure the rest of the world looks back and thinks, what is going on? Just a few decades ago, or even a decade ago, there was no one more superior than these nations on earth.

They had the world by the tail. They were the supreme. They were the empire, and here they are falling apart. And when all this happens, it will be an astonishment to the world. The nations of the world, they may be very happy happening. It'll be an astonishment.

Oh, Bill and Mary Beth, do you have a question? Yes, Mr. Shaby, could you have someone's mic unmuted, and it's interfering with your your old deal? Okay, if someone has their mic on, let me see if I can move out of this for a minute. Is that better? Everyone's got their mic off.

I've got a I got a white screen on me now. I don't have my little my little control panel down below me, so let me just take it off for a moment and do that. Let me turn it around here for a minute.

I think that's it. Everyone's got their mic off. I don't see any mics on. Okay, let me go back and share. Then it will continue. Yeah, if you can keep them off, that would be great. It does help, too, for everyone.

Okay, so we were on verse 14. Verse 15.

So it will be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes.

I gotta repeat, I the Lord, I the Lord, have spoken.

What? Okay, yeah, I still hear... if everyone can check their mic, I can still hear something as well. If you can just look down in your lower half corner and see that your mic is off, that would help. Okay. Verse 16. When I send against them the terrible arrows... notice again the adjectives that God used... when I send against them the terrible... the terrible... here we go...

okay, good. I showed up at just the right time. Okay. When I send them against them the terrible arrows of famine, which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread. I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will be review. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. He repeats. I the Lord have spoken. These are all warnings. This is what's going to happen if you don't, you'll turn back to God. Now, as we finish there in chapter five, let's go back to Revelation 6 again, and we will see, you know, the second, third, and fourth horsemen in Revelation 6, and specifically the third and fourth, I think, just playing off of verses 16 and 17 in chapter five. But let's read about the fiery red horse, the second horse, another horse, fiery red, went out. It was granted to the one who sat in it to take peace from the earth. That was war, and that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come and see. So I looked, and behold a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. There was a limited amount of things. We talked about this last week, the rationing that goes on when there's a limitation in this. Often famine accompanies war. I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a denarius. That's out of control inflation, as it should be, though. Food is scarce, and so it costs a lot of money. Three quarts of barley for a denarius, and don't harm the oil and the wine. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse. This is the pestilence. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. Now, you know, so we have the wild beasts that are mentioned there in chapter in chapter five, and verse 16 and 17. The beasts are mentioned here.

Could be referring to a number of things. Could be referring to war machines that maybe John and Ezekiel saw as beasts of the earth. Could be little beasts that bring famine, or not famine, but pestilence to us. You know, I remember back during COVID time, this little bat, whether it was whether that concoction came about in the Wuhan lab, or whether it really was by someone who ate something of bats, that this beast, very small, very small in nature, what?

Very small in nature, was able to bring on so much suffering. So whatever God has in mind, all these things could come about to bring it. And when here in chapters 16 and 17, it relates directly back to Revelation 6 there, and those plagues that are coming upon the earth. Okay, want to go on to chapter six? Let's go on to chapter six, unless someone's got some questions or comment.

Okay, chapter six continues in the same vein as chapter five. Remember in the original transcripts, there were no chapter breaks. So as God is giving this to Ezekiel, who's recording it, you know, we have the, it goes on. Verse six, and verse one of chapter six, now we see God telling Ezekiel, you can talk. Remember, he told them before, you'll only talk when I tell you to.

There will be time when I will make the, your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth. You won't be able to speak, but I will tell you when to speak.

So here in chapter six, in verse one, we see him speaking. God is going to say, speak to him. Now, as we're looking at our UCG Bible commentary and some others, they say this is kind of a new prophecy, or a little bit apart from what we've just read about in chapter five, but it's exactly the same vein. I think our UCG Bible commentary even indicates or suggests that this perhaps is something that Ezekiel said as he was going through those 390 days that he was laying on his left side, picturing the punishment that would come to Israel.

So verse one, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. Say these words to them. Okay, so now we're clearly talking about the mountains of Israel. Mountains in the Bible refer to kingdoms, so we're talking about governments of Israel. We know, you know, we've said it many times here as we've gone through Isaiah and Ezekiel.

The house of Israel had already been defeated and was moved out of their land and taken captive 130 years before Ezekiel was prophesying. So this is clearly that it is talking about Israel, and it's interesting that it says mountains. So as God has kingdoms, and we know that the nations of Israel today, as we look at where they are, where the fulfillment of chapter 49 of Genesis is that talks about here's where they will be in the last days, we know great nations, big world-renowned nations like Britain, Australia, Canada, America are those that have been the recipient of those blessings.

Set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them and say, oh mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys. Say it to everyone that's there.

The big government, the national governments, the local governments, the state governments, every part of their society, say it to all of them and to the valleys. Indeed, I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. God sees what our high place is. When you read through the Old Testament and you see how the the gentile nations worship their gods, and even as you go over into Europe today and you see where the old temples are, they're always built on the highest places.

That's where they place their temples, their gods, their statues, and everything else. Israel began to do the same type thing with God. They would have their high places where they would go up to worship, because I will destroy those high places, those places that you worship, those things that you were looking to rather than looking to me. We don't have those places in America today or Britain or whatever, but we do have high places that are like that.

We have those things that we worship, governmental structures, our economic system, Wall Street. We were in New York City, and one morning we went out with Lewis and Van Agh stolen his wife. Lewis is a pastor in New York and just walked around New York City for a moment. You see this great big bull there, and you see this where the stock exchanges and everything.

They just look to that as a symbol of wealth and people who can destroy America. You've got the 9-11 memorials there, these huge buildings who can destroy America. No one can destroy America. We have our military installations. We have our government. We have Washington, D.C. All these things that people look to rather than looking to God. That's what he's talking about here. We bring it into our modern-day society. Then your altars shall be desolate.

Your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. God says all these things that you trust in, all these things that you have put your stock into, that you've forgotten me, and you trust in all of this. I'm going to throw healthcare into it as well because so many times people just look to healthcare as the savior rather than looking to God as our healer because he is the one who heals.

God tells his people, just you, when I call you out of the world, don't continue like you're in the world. When I call you and you believe in me and you say you're going to follow me, get rid of those things in your life. Get rid of those high places. Don't have any other gods before me. Little by little, cast them out so that you are worshiping God. I do want to turn back to Deuteronomy 12.

That other reference I have down there in 2 Chronicles 34, 1-8, is Josiah, King Josiah, who was a good king. He was only eight years old, but as you read through those first eight verses, you will see what he did. The nation had turned away from God, but he went through, and one by one, he destroyed the high places, he destroyed the altars. Everything that was not of God, he destroyed. He put it out, and you read through the rest of chapter 34, and you see how pleased God was with him. He got rid of all of it because the focus was supposed to be on God. In chapter 12 of Deuteronomy, beginning in verse 1, God says the same thing about when we, when we're called into his truth. He says, these are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall be careful, which ye shall observe, which ye shall observe, which ye shall observe, which ye shall observe, pay attention to them, do them with detail, do them with recognition, which ye shall be careful to observe in the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. Utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.

Get rid of them all. If they had to do with your former religion or anything that you're putting in front of God, weed them out, put them away, and you shall destroy their altars, rake their sacred pillars, burn their wooden images with fire, cut down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things.

Similar to what we read at the end of that very same chapter where he says, don't add to his word and don't take away from it. And as we look in Ezekiel, God says, you haven't done it, Israel. I'm going to do it. I'm going to cast down all of those high places, all those altars, all those incense altars, all those things you worshiped. I'm going to bring them down and destroy them all, just like he did the gods of Egypt. One by one, during the plagues, as God was bringing Israel out of Egypt, those plagues he destroyed, one by one, every God of Egypt. Got rid of all of them and showed he was powerful. He will do the same thing to Israel, who has also put in the place of God, other gods that they worship.

First, I think I have something here. Yeah, this may occur during the 390 days. This was just referring back to what it said in the UCG commentary. But you look at war, and God says, all the slain, all the people that are going to die because they worship these gods, they're going to literally be lain by those altars that they worshiped. You can almost envision in a time coming where you know you get Wall Street and everyone who worships Wall Street, they're all just laying out. They're dead. They've been killed, but that was the God they worshiped.

The other areas you can see it happen. You look at the price of war. This is from World War II, just places that are just littered with dead bodies. The price of war—we live in a time now where Gaza is in the news, and you've got these students in Columbia, and while we were there in New York, University had its problems with all these violent—I won't say violent—these anti-Israeli protests that are going on. War is just an awful thing. We can look forward to the time when Christ returns, and the cause of war is put away, and he brings absolute peace to the earth.

It's far away from us now, but at one time, sometime in the future, we're going to see scenes like this around us as the country continues to move in completely the wrong direction.

So, I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scaller your bones all around your altars. God says things, and God means them. He just doesn't use shock language just to get our attention with no intention of doing it.

He says what he is going to do, and he puts it in no uncertain terms. If he says it, it's going to happen. So, when we read these words, they're daunting to us, but they also prepare us.

We, those of us who God has opened our minds to know his plan, know what his ultimate plan is, and the hope that he brings to the world through Jesus Christ, our Savior, who will return and save man from destroying himself off of the face of the earth, we have that hope. It will be some difficult times, but ultimately, there will be a time of peace, harmony, and for all the world and everyone who lives in it, and that's where the hope is. But it should prepare us mentally. God's Spirit does not put in us the spirit of fear of man, but the fear of God. He will give us what we need in order to move through those times, always keeping our eyes on him. Verse 6, verse 6, Then in all your dwelling places, the city shall be laid waste. Now, that's something that never happened in ancient Israel. Never were there dwelling places where the cities shall be laid waste. Cities like New York, cities like Chicago, cities like Orlando will be laid waste. God says it, and this isn't the only place he says it. God says the same thing throughout these times of prophecy that we have here, and we can look at a few other places there in Ezekiel 6. I think I've put them down for you. Remember, we can go back just a couple books if you keep your finger there in Ezekiel 6. We can go back to Isaiah 6, where we just read the same thing that he gave to Isaiah as Isaiah was prophesying to the house of Israel while they were still a nation. He was prophesying to Judah, but Israel hadn't been defeated at that time or hadn't been conquered by Assyria.

Isaiah 6, verse 11, when God is talking you, remember, to Isaiah and calling him, he says, I'll give you the words. I'll give you the words to say, Isaiah. In verse 11, Isaiah said, okay, I'll do whatever you say. I'll speak whatever you want me to say. He asks in verse 11, how long? God says, until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant.

Until the cities are laid waste. That means to the end of time. These are things that will happen at the end of time, at the end times, as we call them. Isaiah talked about it. God talks about it in Leviticus 26 and verse 31. Let's do look back at that. Now, as you're turning back to Leviticus 26, it's also mentioned in Deuteronomy 28, the other chapter there where God says, what will happen to his people if they turn away from him. Leviticus 26 is an interesting chapter because it shows the stages. It shows how God's patience is and how he warns people. As you look through Leviticus 26, you see this series of things that will happen. Then it'll make the comment, in verse 14, if you don't obey me and don't observe these commandments, this is what's going to happen.

Then later on, it'll be verse 23, if by these things you are not reformed by me, but walk contrary to life, then I'll walk contrary to you and I'll bring these things upon you. You see these stages that are there. Finally, get down to the end of chapter 26 and verse 31. You'll see in verse 30, well, let's look at verse 29. It's my life's just spell on that, the things we've been talking about. I will destroy your high places. I will cut down your incense altars. They didn't do it, so God will do it. I will cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols, just exactly what we read in Ezekiel. And my soul shall abhor you. I will lay your city's waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. I will bring the land to desolation. I overlooked chapter 29, where it talks about the same thing we just read. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. So the very same things that God gave to Moses that he recorded in the Torah, here we are. We see them in Isaiah. We see them in Deuteronomy. We see them now in Ezekiel. If God says it, as he says in Isaiah 45 and Isaiah 55, he says, if I say it, my words are not going to come back to me void. If I said it, it will surely come to pass. And so we should be assured that these words we're reading while daunting are happening, but they don't turn us from God. They turn us to God to follow him and to mourn for the world that they don't see the truth. When we get into Ezekiel 8, a couple chapters, we should get to that next Wednesday. God says to the people that sigh and cry for the problems in Israel. Don't hate them because of it, but mourn that they have to go through that, that they just haven't followed God and will need to go through these things. Brother Shabir. Yes, Brother Shabir.

Hi. We were talking at Sabbath services and something similar came up. We were talking about Revelation 16 verse 19. It says, all the cities of the nations collapse. Very good.

There you go. Okay. Oh, not just a few, right? Oh, yeah. Well, God says he's going to destroy, and he says that it's going to be desolation. Later on, he uses that word, and he's pretty clear, he's pretty clear in what he means there. So, okay. Back to Ezekiel 6 and verse 7. He repeats, the slain shall fall in your midst, and there's that phrase again, and you will know that I am the Lord. You will know. There will be no doubt in people's minds, just like in, as I mentioned, Revelation 16. Also, in Revelation 6, when those stars, you know, the stars and the skies do something strange, they know it's God. They know it's God because it's not anything predictable anymore, but they still don't repent. You shall know that I am the Lord. Yet, God promises I will leave a remnant. I won't completely destroy you. Remember, God says that. You're just in Isaiah 6, but there he says the same thing to him. There will remain a tenth of Israel. There will be plenty who die by famine, pestilence, and sword, but I won't completely destroy them. They are the seed of God, and he will bring them back to their promised land from where they've been scattered. You go back to what we read in Isaiah, the many times in Isaiah that it references, they will come back. God will bring them back from the east, the west, the north, to the place to his promised land of Israel. Yes, or yet I will leave a remnant, he says in verse 8, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations when you are scattered through the countries. He'll bring them back, but they will be scattered. Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations. Oh, then it'll be like we did know God. We did hear these words. We ignored them. We didn't want to believe them. We wanted to make fun of them, or as they did in Christ's time, as they will do in our time later on, we just want to kill the people who believe those things. We don't even want them around us. We want to kill the word of God, just like Satan looks to kill anything of God and destroy it. Then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are a carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart. You can see God's heart there. He says in Jeremiah, he talks about, you divorced me, Israel, or I divorced you. You were my wife. I married you. I gave you everything. I entered into a covenant with you, and then you went out and played the harlot. You looked at all the nations around me. You wanted to worship them rather than me.

God says here, I was crushed. I gave them everything. I mean, they're no nation greater than America. Britain, the empire that they had in the 1800s, no greater empire on earth ever than that. It was one who left everywhere they went better off than it was before. God says, I gave you all those things, but you turned away from me. I was crushed by their adulterous heart, which has departed from me, and by their eyes, which play the harlot after their idols. They're always looking for something better. I'm not good enough. I'll worship this God. I'll do things their way. Let's just forget God. It says there, then, they will loathe themselves.

I take notice twice in this book of Ezekiel, God says they will loathe themselves when they realize what they've done, when they realize all the imaginations of what they're doing now and how great they will be. It all comes just sinking down in a tremendous collapse all around them. They find themselves in situations they didn't think they could possibly be in.

They will loathe themselves for what they have done, and they will remember God. They will remember the things that they have heard, and they will turn to God. When they turn to God, as Christ says and as we read in Isaiah, they won't turn from them again. It's a hard, hard lesson to learn, but they will remain loyal to Him then. They will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. Verse 10, they shall know. Nope, I haven't been progressing my slides here. Here are cities laid waste. I mean, this is just World War II, right? Just complete rubble, and that will be all the cities. There's great buildings and everything that everything is going to be that way. They shall know, he says in verse 10, that I am the Lord. I haven't said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them. You can think back in Isaiah 45 and 55, which I just mentioned a few minutes ago, where God says, I don't speak. I just don't speak idle words. My words will not return to me empty. What I say is going to happen. You can mark down Isaiah 45, 23. Did I put those in there? Nope, in Isaiah 55, 11. Go back. When God says that, he's reminding us, my words are not empty. This is as sure as we're here reading it today. Thus says the Lord God, verse 11, notice the energy, notice the energy and the action here. Pound your fists, stamp your feet, and say, Alas! For all the evil abominations—there's that word again—all the evil abominations of the house of Israel. For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. Alas, alas! Cry aloud and say it. For all the abominations of Israel. This is why they will do it. You can see why God says, you know, cry aloud, spare not, let my people know their sin. And he's talking about the nations of the earth that he is blessed. Let them know, so that they know when it happens, it was of God. He said it, and it happened, and they brought it upon themselves. He who is far off, verse 12, shall die by the pestilence. He who is near shall fall by the sword. And he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus will I spend my fury upon them. There will be no escape, God says. They will be punished, and by these various things that are depicted by those four horsemen who ride the course of the earth ever more swiftly as end times appear. And we didn't read one of those verses in Revelation 6 that says, by these a fourth of all of mankind, all of mankind, die. So there's, you know, and here we have the nation of Israel, the mountains of Israel, who feel the brunt of it. Then you shall know, verse 13, that I am the Lord.

There's that phrase again. You will know that's why God's doing it, so that you are absolutely crystal-fear, clear that it is God. It is God who's done this. It is God who we must worship. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when they're slain or among their idols.

Drawing back to that picture again, they're all dead, laid there on the altars of the things that they worshiped most in life rather than worshiping God. Well, they are among, slain among all their idols, all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offer sweet incense to all their idols. They worship them, and their idols will not save them. So, verse 14 is a very good wrap-up before chapter 7, which we'll go into next week, where God then has some specific words that follow the same theme here, but progress us into the end times in a more distinct manner, if you will. So, I will stretch out my hand against them, God says, and I will make the land desolate.

Yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Dibla and in all their dwelling places. I'll make it more desolate than anything they have seen. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

Reason He did it. Turn back to me. So, like I said, those are some eye-opening verses that are in 5 and 6. They are yet ahead of us. However, long as only God knows, but certainly as we look at the world around us, we see us coming ever closer to those times. And when you look at the prophecies that Christ gave in Matthew 24 and see those buds on the prophetic tree, as I sometimes say, continuing to open up, we know that time gets nearer and nearer. So, we'll stop there in chapter 6. Next Wednesday, we will take it up in chapter 7. So, let me stop my share here and open it up for anyone.

Now, I see that I wasn't in my... So, I hope there hasn't been... Yep, Becky Bingman has her hand up. Sorry if I've ignored you for a while, Becky, I didn't mean to. No, I just raised it. Okay. Thank you, though. Just wondering that verse that Xavier mentioned, I missed it in Revelation. I wanted to ask him where that was about all the nations. Xavier, is that who you're talking about?

Yes, 1619. I thought you said 619, and I'm like, oh, that's not there. So, I knew I misheard you. Thank you. I bet that was an interesting conversation. Thank you.

No, at church, yeah. Very good.

Okay. Wow, we must have covered it very well. So, everyone's quiet tonight.

It was a nice... It was a nice weekend, right? I mean, Sabbath, Sunday Passover, Monday night to be much observed, Tuesday, Tuesday, the first totally day, and then here, Wednesday. So, we're together five days in a row. It's kind of nice, almost like a piece of Tabernacles.

That was great.

Okay. Well, you're probably all tired. Your wife's name, Christine.

Yeah, I was going to say, for me, it feels like it's always busier this time of the year than the whole of Feast of Tabernacles. Well, maybe because we're at the Feast of Tabernacles, and here we're driving back and forth to the place. Yeah.

And we're cleaning out houses and all the other things we do at the same time.

Okay.

I will let you all go. It's been great to be with you here tonight. Have a very good rest of the week, very good rest of the Feast of Tabernacles. We will look forward to seeing you next Wednesday night. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.