Ezekiel Bible Study: December 4, 2024

Tonight we will be in chapter 24. Chapter 24 is the last chapter in a series of chapters that we've been in where God is warning his people then, Judah, Jerusalem, Israel, prophecies that pertain to us today too. Over and over again, he warns them of what they've done, how they've turned against him, and what the consequences of their actions against him have been. So 24 is the last chapter of that section. It began way back in like chapter 16 when we talked about God nurturing Israel. And you remember in chapter 16, it talked about, you were just a baby that no one wanted. And he took them in and he cleaned them up and he nurtured Israel and he adorned her and made her beautiful. And then in the succeeding chapters, we see how Israel turned against God. And he called her a harlot. He called her lewd.

And just use that analogy of a cheating wife and adulterous wife to show how he feels about people that he has done so much for and that turned against him. And you remember last week, it was a very vivid and graphic chapter of how he sees Israel and any of us. When we turn against God and aren't grateful to him for the things that he has done. And we show that gratitude by yielding our lives to him and doing the things that he wants. So in chapter 24, we're gonna continue with that guys as he again talks about how Israel has turned against him and Jerusalem. And again, as he has done with Ezekiel, it's not just the words that he gives Israel or Ezekiel to speak to Israel. He has them act out some things. And there are some analogies in here. And then one that is very sobering thing that God has Ezekiel do or go through again to warn Israel and to show them what is going to come if they turn back to him. Of course, through it all, they don't. So they suffer all these things that God said would come upon them. When he says something's going to happen, he's patient. He's kind, he keeps sending the warning out. And eventually he determines what he has said is going to be done. So in chapter 24, we find really kind of the, well, the end I said of this set of prophecies and God gives us a specific date in the first few verses here of chapter 24. Says again, in the ninth year and the 10th month, on the 10th day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying, and God specifically tells Ezekiel write down the name of the day, this very day, because on this day, the king of Babylon started his siege against Jerusalem this very day. So Israel or Ezekiel has been prophesying now, the commentary is safe for four years. But if we go back to chapter 20, we see that there's two years and two years and five months I have written down here in my notes that God has been since the chapter 20 thing, because the chapter 20 verse one, it says, it came to pass in the seventh year in the fifth month, and now we're in the ninth year in the 10th month. So two years and five months have occurred in the last, have passed in the last four chapters that we've been reading through. The time is coming closer and closer. God has been warning what would happen. And God says on this very day, Nebuchadnezzar at the king of Babylon will start his siege against Jerusalem. And you'll remember way back, way back in chapter two, three, four, and that in the very early chapters of Ezekiel, he's as Ezekiel make this clay model and build a siege wall against it to show this is what's going to happen. So now the time has come that the Babylonian siege against Jerusalem will occur. And then he says in verse three, utter repairable, utter repairable to the rebellious house.

Now, as we've seen the rebellious house in prior chapters, that's Israel. And again, so just to keep it in our minds, the house of Israel has fallen at this point, a hundred and some years before that, they were, they lost their nation. They were taken captive by the Assyrians. So when we read about the rebellious house, we know that God is speaking to those at the end time as well, the nation of Israel, no longer exists then in a setting, but we do today. Utter repairable to the rebellious house and say to them, thus says the Lord God. And this is one of those dual prophecies because he's talking about Jerusalem, but he's also talking about the end time. And he uses an analogy in the next several verses here that we have seen before in Ezekiel 13, I believe it was. We'll turn back there in a minute, but you'll remember that we talked about a cauldron. God was talking about a heated cauldron that the people would be in. We talked about how that was the city. And as we went through the prophecy, then people were going to be caught at the border and we showed how all that was fulfilled. All that was fulfilled in the Bible as King Zedekiah broke his oaths against Nebuchadnezzar and God condemned him for breaking those oaths. So here in the next few verses, we're gonna see this boiling pot. And the boiling pot pictures the city, the bloody city God is going to say here. He says in verse three, put on a pot, set it on and pour water into it. So you can kind of just picture. Here's this big pot that's going to be heated up. It's going to cook something. It's going to cook the meat that's in it. And he says, gather pieces of meat in it. Every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder, fill it with choice cuts.

He's talking about the people of Jerusalem. He's talking about the people of Israel, when he says speak to the rebellious house. These would be the high and mighties of the world, the elites of the world. He says, put them all, put them all in this pot. Not just the poor, not just the widow, not just those that society might say, isn't that important. Take the good pieces. They all go into the pot that's going to be there. Fill it with choice cuts. Take the choice of the flock and pile fuel bones under it. Get it boiling hot. Make it really, really, really hot. Make it boil well and let the cuts simmer in it. Let them boil. Let those meats boil all those pieces, the meat that God puts in that pot. He's talking about here, Jerusalem and Judah is the pot there. Later on, it's the land we live in.

When the heat is turned up, there will be the suffering that goes along with it. I have written in my Bible here, chapter 11 and verse three. Let me just read what that says to you.

Yeah, actually, they saw me, it was chapter 11 when we talked about the cauldron. And verse one, it says, the spirit lifted Ezekiel up. They brought him to the east gate of the Lord's house, which faces eastward. And there at the door of the gate were those 25 men, among whom I saw Jez and Aya, he says, the San of Azer, and Pelotai, the son of Aniah, princess of the people. The choice cuts, if you will, right? So you'll remember that these 25 men who were there, that God said, they're looking out toward the east. They're not looking toward me. They're looking toward the east, the rising sun. And he said to me, son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity and give wicked counsel in the city, who say the time is not near. It's like, don't worry about it. We've got plenty of time. We don't have to listen to these prophets. We don't have to do what God says. The time is not near. So let us build houses. This city is the cauldron and we are the meat. So they're saying they're the cauldron, we're the meat. We're in this protected pot, they're saying, since we're in this pot, we're in the meat. Nothing can touch us is what they're saying. God's turning that around here in chapter 24. Oh, you are the pot and you are going to burn in that pot.

You will suffer for that. So in verse six, then, as we go on, it says, therefore it says the Lord God, woe to the bloody city. You know, we're talking again, when we see bloody city Jerusalem, it was abominable. It was violent. It was lewd. It was totally against God. Everything that God was for, Jerusalem almost it seems like was against. Woe to the bloody city, to the pot.

Whose scum is in it. And we know what scum is. This is the garbage, right? So when you boil meat, you have all that stuff that floats around in it that boils off of the meat and God's calling it scum. A couple of chapters ago, it was called Ross when we were in chapter 22. And God would talk about the Ross in verse.

And again, what we learn in Ezekiel is, God will give an analogy and a prophecy. And then a few chapters later, chapters in our mind, but months, years, or whatever, as Ezekiel, he'll go back to that to remind the people, this is what I said. This is what I said. You were Ross back then in chapter 22.

And verse 18, God tells Ezekiel, it says, son of man, the house of Israel has become Ross to me. That's the stuff that burns off of the silver and gold. The worthless, the worthless stuff that is nothing there. And when you purify gold, you remember we talked about being refined in fire. God uses that analogy for the laodicea in church. Have gold refined in the fire. You need all the dross, all the scum that's on you burned off, so you are pure and you are righteous in my eyes and you have shed all the garbage, sin, faults, weaknesses, attitudes, whatever it is, that all needs to come off of you so we can appear before God in the wet manner. That's acceptable to him. So he says in this son of man, the house of Israel has become Ross to me. They're all worthless. There's nothing shiny there anymore. There's nothing of any value when I look at them. They're spiritually completely void of any value. They become Ross to me. They are all bronze, tin, iron and lead. In the midst of a furnace, they have become Ross from silver.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, because you become Ross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

And then the low fire on it, he says, and then Jerusalem is going to be purged, if you will, with fire. So two chapters later, in chapter 24, we have this same analogy that God is saying here, as he talks to a city and he talks to the rebellious house as you've all become spiritually worthless. You're Ross to me, you're scum to me. Behold, not in chapter 24, chapter 24, we are in verse six, blow to the bloody city to the pot whose scum is in it and whose scum is not gone from it. The scum is still there. It needs to be boiled away. It needs to no longer be present in you.

When God created Israel, as we've talked about many times, what he wanted them to become was a model nation. He gave them his laws, he gave them his principles. He provided everything for them. And he proved to them that he could provide everything for them. Water in the desert, food in the desert. All he wanted them to do was obey his law and become the model nation for the earth of, when you follow the God of Abraham, Isaac's, and Jacob's way, happiness, joy, peace, he provides everything for you. But they didn't do that. They became scum as they looked at the world around them and adopted their ways. So he says, your scum is not gone.

I heat up, but the scum is not there. Break it, bring it out. He says then going on in verse six here, piece by piece on which no lot has fallen.

And as you look at the commentaries here and it talks about bringing things out piece by piece. Again, remember, God's got this boiling pot. All the choice cuts, all the people are in that pot. And he's saying, well, bring it out piece by piece. It means, it means that what he's signifying there is that there's going to be ongoing problems. There will be ongoing death. There will be ongoing purging. It's not gonna happen all at once. It'll happen in stages. Bring it out piece by piece on which no lot has fallen, just randomly. I guess in old days where they would take people captive, one of the commentaries said, it would be when like in Assyria conquered Israel, they would move people out by lot. Okay, you're in this lot. So you move, you stay and whatever, but not at this one, it's just random. There's no way. It's whatever God pulls out of that piece at that point and people can see what happens as a result of their reactions and what God is the fire that's burning here. Bring it out piece by piece on which no lot has fallen, just random. Everyone is at the same thing, whether you got a billion dollars in the bank or zero in the bank, whether you're of a high class born of royalty or the poorest slave in that land, everyone is in the same boat. They all are in the same boat here. For her blood, verse seven, is in her midst. She set it on top of a rock. She didn't pour it out on the ground to cover it with dust.

Now that's something that we would read and think, not sure exactly what God is talking about there, but again, what he's referring to is something that he instructed of Israel, kind of just part of the way of life and the respect for the blood and what you do if an animal is killed or I guess a human is killed as well. If you wanna turn back to Leviticus 17, 13, and gives this principle, and again, it shows that when God speaks something, of course, we're in the Old Testament here, but it's a life principle as well. He holds people accountable for it. And then verse 13 of Leviticus 17, and he says, whatever man are the children of Israel or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust, or cover it with dust, for it is the life of all flesh.

So show respect for the blood. If you spill it, cover it with dust. Dust you are, dust you are, the dust you shall return, cover it with dust. And God is saying here, he's referencing that law that Israel isn't keeping that either. He holds us accountable for everything. We talk often about learning how to live by every word of the Bible. And as he says this here of the people of that time and the time that we may live in right now, he says, you didn't do this, your blood, everything that you have spilled in your city, you haven't even covered it with dust. It's sitting right there. It's on the top of a rock. It's for everyone to see, everyone to see that you have sinned against me. You're not even trying to hide it. You're just blatantly flaunting it. Just like the harlots that we read in the previous two and three chapters, they didn't even try to hide their lewdness. They were just out doing whatever they can for the whole world to see and flaunting in God's face. And God says the same thing here. You didn't even pour it on the ground. You didn't even show that respect. You load it out there for the whole world to see what you were doing. It was almost like it was a defiance. Well, in fact, it is a defiance of God when we just blatantly disobey or disregard his principles.

And that angers God as well it should, as well it should, because if we sin against God, we do bring punishment upon us. But in his love and mercy, Jesus Christ was sent to earth. He lived the perfect life and died that our sins may be forgiven.

But without them doing that, without doing the things that God said, for instance, in verse seven there, he says that it may, this blood that's just there for the whole world to see, your sins, your wickedness, your vileness, you know, the lewdness we're gonna read a little bit in a little bit, that it may rise up fury and take vengeance. You know, you're flaunting it at me. It's angering me. You have incited me with your actions and with the way you blatantly disregard my principles, that it may raise up fury and take vengeance. I have set her blood on top of a rock that it may not be covered. God says, I'm gonna punish you and your blood's gonna be on the rock. The world will see what you've done, what you have reaped, you will sow. The world will see how God treats those who, or the consequences of the way people live when it comes upon them. The whole world will know and understand.

Verse nine, you know, wait, verse eight.

Yeah, you know, I guess looking at the blood, the blood here, you know, it reminded me when I was reading this of the account of Abel, you don't have to turn there, you know well, the story of Cain and Abel, and Cain became jealous of Abel that God accepted his offering and he killed him. And when God confronts Cain and says, where's your brother? Where's your brother? And you remember Cain answers, my very brother, keeper. And in verse 10 of Genesis four, God says, what have you done, Cain? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

It's the same type thing that God is saying there. His blood cries out to me from the ground. You have done him wrong. And so when we read about this blood and that God's gonna set the blood on a rock for all to see, we see these analogies throughout the Bible. And when we know the Bible and we study through it, we see the symmetry of it, we see how it flows together, we see what God is doing and what he means by those things that he says.

So back in chapter 24, in verse nine, he goes on. He goes on with what his message is to the bloody city. Therefore it says the Lord God, woe, woe to the bloody city. Whenever God says woe, boy, we take notice, right? Woe to the bloody city. I too will make the pyre great. Meaning God is gonna add his fuel to the fire. I will make that fire great. That furnace will burn red hot in a way you could not even imagine. I too will make the pyre great. Keep on the wood, kindle the fire, cook that meat well, mix in the spices and let the cuts be burned up. God is saying, prepare a dish. They are in this cauldron, turn the heat way up, cook it well. Make sure that it is red hot, right? And purified as we're gonna see. Then in verse 11, he says, and then set the pot empty on the coals.

So the meat's been poured out, right? Because back in verse six, it says, bring it out piece by piece. That pot is there piece by piece. The meat is taken out and what's left in it is the scum then. The piece is taken out. The people are, I guess, killed by sword, famine, pestilence, taken off captive, whatever it is that God has in mind for them. So then we have this empty pot, but what's left in it is the scum. The scum, the mess of Israel. Set the pot empty on the coals that it may become hot and its bronze may burn, that its filthiness may be melted in it, that its scum may be consumed. Destroy the evil, God is saying. Just destroy all the scums, destroy the dross, have it completely gone. The people have been purged with fire. It was red hot. They've had spices put on them and they've been taken out piece by piece and they understand what they've done because they've been refined with fire. Now that may make you think of Revelation three and the Laodicean Church again. So I think we cannot ignore what God is saying here because as he's speaking to the bloody city, Israel at that time, and to the rebellious house, Israel, we have at the end time, the Philadelphia church, if you will, that God says does things right. They follow his principles. They live by his way. But we have the Laodicean church that is, as he says, lukewarm.

They, you know, everything is okay. I'm rich, I'm increased with goods, I have need of nothing. Whatever, I'm okay, God is okay with me.

But God says, no, not at all. You're not red hot. You don't have the zeal for me. You aren't living the way that he called us to live. Verse 17 then in Revelation three says, because you say, I'm rich, I become wealthy, and I have need of nothing. And you don't know that, and I'm gonna wear this, the word spiritually, spiritually, you are wretched, you are miserable, you are poor, blind, and naked. And what God says to them, I counsel you. Well, they have scum in them. They have dross, they become dross, God says. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich, and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your makingness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyes, sad, that you may see.

Open your eyes, God says, you will be purged with fire. You will live the way of life of God willingly, and not allow ourselves to get settled in, into in complacency, as it says in Zephaniah one 12. But we will always let God's spirit motivate us, move us, and create the zeal in us to do his will, and to become more and more like him. And that is a fire that should be burning in us, to become more and more like him.

As it says in 1 John 3, 3, anyone who has the hope of Jesus Christ, anyone who has the hope of his return, and being there when he returns, purifies himself. That means we make the choices in our life to reject self, reject our old way of thinking, and do things the way he did. So you can't, as you read Ezekiel 24, it has to bring to mind Revelation 3, that speaks of the, you know, one of the end time churches that Christ prophesied of back then.

So he says, I'm gonna read verse 11 back in Ezekiel 24 again, that is filthiness may be melted in it, that is scum may be consumed.

Now that's, you know, if I go back to chapter 22 again, I've already read, I think I've read chapter, verse 18, but let me read it to you, you don't have to turn there. Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me, that's scum, they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead. In the midst of a furnace, they have become dross from silver. So again, the purification process by fire, by fire in this boiling pot, right? Jerusalem, the bloody city, America, where everyone is in this boiling pot, and can't escape, has got a hunch of tape because he will purify his people and make them aware of their sins. We know that because we've read it in Isaiah, how when God, when Israel and his people are moved into captivity, and they begin to understand, well, how they have sinned against God, and it says at least three times in Ezekiel, they will loathe themselves. They will loathe themselves because of what they've done. And then they will turn to God and they will stay with him, they will repent, and they will be a model, the model nation he always wanted them to be.

So let me say, verse 12.

Verse 12, she has grown weary, it really means that Israel, the bloody city, she has wearied me with lies. Though we got a very lying culture, right? She has grown weary or she has wearied me with lies. And her great scum has not gone from her. Let her scum be in the fire. In your filthiness, God says, is lewdness. And that word lewdness is a pretty strong word. It's almost like it's the worst of the worst. You can't get any lower than what lewdness in this verse that's in the Hebrew is. And again, when you read, as we did in chapter 23 last week, about how God saw Israel as a harlot, and the ways he describes them, the way she would flaunt herself and everything, it's the lowest of the low. In your filthiness is lewdness, because I have cleansed you and you were not cleansed. Here God is saying, I'm the one who brought you out of Egypt if we talk about Israel, I brought you up, you were slaves. I cleansed you, I gave you the things. If we refer back to Ezekiel 16, where we were talking about the baby that he was saying, the bloody baby that he took, that he nurtured, he cleaned up, he grew, he taught, he adorned. She became a beautiful envy of the nations because of the beauty that was in her. And God says, I cleansed you, but you weren't cleansed, because that beautiful wife that he had turned on him. And she became very, very spiritually ugly in the way that she had done. I cleansed you guys, said, I gave you everything. I purged you of the things, but you weren't cleansed. You turned back to that filthy, disgusting way. You will not be cleansed of your filthiness anymore till I have caused my fury to rest upon you. So God says, as we've been reading for the last seven, eight chapters here, you know, I cleansed you and I am warning you, turn back to me, cleanse yourself, repent. How many times did we read that in Ezekiel 18 and 20 throughout the Bible? Turn to me, repent, cleanse, and I will cleanse you of your sins. The same thing he says to us today, acknowledge, acknowledge your faults, repent, turn to me and I will forgive and you will be as white as snow. But they don't. So God says, you know, the warnings are done. You won't be cleansed of your filthiness anymore. It's done. The script is written, you have ignored every prophet that I've sent, you've ignored every warning that I sent. And he goes, you won't be cleansed of your filthiness anymore until I have caused my fury to rest upon you. Now is that time that no one wants to see, that time that God will exact the vengeance and everything he said that would come upon Israel comes upon him. For those of us living in this age, the great tribulation. Right? I mean, that's something that we see as though time that's worse than any other time on earth. And Joel 2, 28 says, who can endure it? It's a day of dread. It's a day of horror when God exacts his vengeance. And there is a time when there's no going back.

That is going to happen. And that's what God is saying here. You won't be cleansed anymore. The die has been cast. You've reused and rejected everything I said. Now my fury will be rested upon you. The same thing that this world is going to have to endure because they have ignored God and any warning that he has given them. And it's incumbent on us, I continue to say that, we need to be sending that warning message out strong to the world because God has given us that commission.

I the Lord, he says in verse 14, I the Lord have spoken it, it shall come to pass and I will do it. I will not hold back, nor will I spare, nor will I relent.

So he's saying, no matter how much you cry out to me in that time of tribulation, no matter how much you cry out to me when that boiling pot is that cauldron that you're in, it's boiling and it's painful and it's hard. I'm not going to relent. You brought it upon yourself, not only by what you did, but your continued refusal to turn to me and yield to him. I won't spare, he says, I won't relent. According to your ways and according to your deeds, they, your ways will judge you, says the Lord God. So it's kind of an ominous thing that God says there. I mean, but it is his, that is him, that is his name.

He says he will do it because otherwise his name would be defiled. If he says he's going to do it, he does show immense patience. He does send immense, a number of warnings. He keeps warning us, he keeps sending things to us to turn back to me. How many times have we read that? You read it in Isaiah, you read it in Jeremiah, you read it in Ezekiel, you read it in the minor prophets over and over, he sent Jesus Christ to turn back to them and they rejected every one of them he said. So he has no choice, but to do what he said he was going to be, doesn't enjoy it, but he has to do it for our own good because we have to be cleansed and we have to turn to him. We either do it willingly, we either do it willingly or, you know, because he loves us, he will turn up the heat.

Turn up the heat and that's why you read about the many in Revelation seven, I guess it is, where it says the many who have washed their robes white in the great tribulation. They have to go through the pain and suffering but they know at that time, I have no choice. I have no choice but to turn to God and go through this. They bring it upon themselves and, you know, when it says in Matthew about there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, it's because we didn't do it. We had the opportunity to do it God's way but we never did it. We just let ourselves continue in the same old ways rather than turning to him with all our hearts.

So that's that prophecy. And it's quite an analogy when you look at it. And again, remembering that Ezekiel had given the same, God had given Ezekiel the same type of thing to talk about before. So the people who in that day would be very familiar with cauldrons and boiling cauldrons and meat in it and all these things would have understood what he's saying there. But then, you know, chapter 24 takes quite a turn and it's, I don't even know the word for it but God asks Ezekiel to do something here that just shows that's kind of riveting, sobering.

It shows Ezekiel's faith and also shows that when we follow God, we have to continue to develop that faith and trust in him even when he asks us to do something that just seems like the hardest thing you can imagine to do, we do it because we believe him and we believe his son is returning and we believe in the resurrection and we resite everything. So let's just read here in verse 16. So he comes to Ezekiel who has done everything that God has told him to do. He's been a very faithful prophet and servant of God. Verse 15, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, came to Ezekiel saying, son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes. So we know when he says, I'm gonna take something very precious from you, very precious from you. I'm gonna take it away.

You know, Christ said, if you're not willing to give up everything, then you can't be my disciple. If there can be no other thing, nothing more important to you than doing what God's will is. And it's a hard saying for us to imagine, but God illustrates it here. It is something for us to look at and recognize and ask God, give us the same faith, stability, belief and yieldedness to him that Isaiah had and a few others will talk about as well. Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke. It's gonna happen pretty quick. Yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor show your tears run down. So God is saying, it's gonna hurt. I'm gonna take something from you. It's gonna hurt. But Elijah or Ezekiel, I don't want you crying. I don't want you mourning. I want you to act like it didn't happen, like it didn't faze you at all. And there's a reason, there's a reason for that that we'll see that God is doing because he's having Ezekiel play out the scenario for Jerusalem and not rebellious house of what they're going to be like. They will be seeing, they will be seeing in Ezekiel what happens to him, what will happen to them if they do not turn back to God. Now, as we read about, let me read verse 17 and then we'll talk about it in a minute. It says, sigh Ezekiel in silence, make no mourning for the dead. Find your turban on your head, put your sandals on your feet, don't cover your lips and don't eat man's bread of sorrow. You know what, get up every morning and dress and act and do the things like you have every other day, like nothing in your life has changed except something really major is going to change in your life, but you're solid in me is what God is saying. So Ezekiel says, God says that to him. So Ezekiel says, I spoke to the people in the morning and in evening, my wife died. And the next morning I did as I was commanded.

I mean, that is a, there is so much in that verse, what has happened? Ezekiel heard what God said. He had no, well, maybe he knew what desire of your eyes meant. Maybe he would have thought back to Job when Job lost, you know, all of his sons and daughters and possessions and thought, I don't know whether he had kids or not. We don't know, but he spoke those words in the morning and then his wife died that evening. So he knew exactly what God meant. And he listened to those words and he didn't mourn. He did exactly what God said. He didn't shed tears. He didn't eat the bread of sorrow. He didn't weep.

I did as I was commanded.

There is faith, that unshakable faith and belief in God that you can't describe any other way. Ezekiel was so yielded to God, so committed to him, so much believed in him that no matter what God said, Ezekiel would do, that God gave him the strength and he did exactly what God said to do. It is a mighty, mighty price to pay, right? Because Ezekiel, look how loyal he's been through the 24 chapters we've read here. He's done everything God has said, you know, you look back at building the clay thing, laying on his side for 360 days and then another 30 days for Judah, all these things God had him do. And then this was a really hard test. This was a really hard test, but Ezekiel passed it. He did exactly what God wanted to do. And I don't know, my heart aches for Ezekiel, right? But it was God's will and there's also something beautiful and riveting about that. You know, there's other people in the Bible who have had to face the same things. We can think about Abraham. We can think about Abraham and God said to him, take Isaac and sacrifice him. And Abraham didn't miss a step. He didn't sit down and beg God. He didn't go, you know, he didn't get mad at God. He simply went through the process and did it, and did it. God didn't let Isaac die at that time. He let Ezekiel's, he let Ezekiel's wife die. We can think back, you know, in Leviticus 10, when Israel, when the priesthood is being formed and Aaron's sons, you remember we have talked, I guess it's in sermons we've talked about the ever burning fire and how God said, God started the fire that he said would continually burn in the temple. And ever that was the fire that was supposed to be used. And Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu used profane fire.

They kind of had a latency and attitude. What's the difference? Fire is fire, we'll use it. And you'll remember God immediately, immediately set fire down and consumed them. Let me just read those verses because it kind of ties into what we've been talking about with the burning cauldron as well in Leviticus 10.

Let me see how far down. I don't want to read every verse here.

Yeah, verse one, they had Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it and offered profane. That means knocked the holy fire that God had started. It's a latency and complacent attitude. They didn't do what he had commanded to them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before Lord and before the eternal. And Moses said to Aaron, by those, God says, by those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. If I say it's holy, holy, do it my way, understand the detail, do it the detail, discipline yourself to do and follow him by every word. And before all the people, I must be glorified. How do we glorify God? Honor him, acknowledge him, obey him in the way that he says to obey him, yield to him, I give our hearts, minds and soul to him. And so it says as Aaron sees his two sons consumed by fire, Aaron held his peace. Later down in verse six, Moses said to Aaron and to Eliezer and Ithamar, his other sons, don't uncover your heads, don't tear your clothes, lest you die and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. So he's saying, don't you mourn, don't you show any emotion on that, because what has done, what God has done, what God has done, it is to purify Israel. I'm looking for a phrase that's in here.

Oh yeah, but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. Again, there's this purification, they'd have him by who? You didn't follow God's way. There was wickedness, that scum when you don't do things God's way. And God says, let Israel bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. He will purify. He, our attitudes must be the way that he wants and we must do things the way he wants and it leads to all good things.

So there's these examples in the Bible where God does purify and he does take the evil out of his people. And we just need to make sure as God shows us that wicked heart that's in us that we repent and we ask him to give us the strength to reject self and adopt his ways. But a very powerful, very powerful section of scripture here because Ezekiel did it and he just kept moving and it had to hurt immensely, but he loved God more and that's one of the keys. Love God more than anything else on earth. So, you know, the people knew that Ezekiel's wife had died. They saw how he behaved. He went out and the next morning he did as he was commanded. In verse 19, I'm back in Ezekiel 24, says, and the people said to me, will you not tell us what these things signify that you behave so? Your wife just died. Why are you acting like nothing happened? Why are you going about your business as if nothing has happened? Why do you put your turban on your head? Why did you put the sandals on your feet?

Why are you out here doing this? Your wife just died. Why are you behaving this? They have come to some realization that when deep Ezekiel says these things, it's a message from God and this is a powerful message. Ezekiel, what are you doing? What is the thing that you would have us and what would God, I guess, have us say, see that we need to see in ourselves? And then Ezekiel tells him, remember all the words that Ezekiel gave were words that God gave him to say. So Ezekiel answered in verse 20, the word of the Lord came to me saying, he always acknowledges, this is what God told me. Always said that as Moses would say, the word of the Lord came to him as well. The word of the Lord came to me saying, speak to, not the burning pot this time or the bloody city, speak to the house of Israel. Again, we know where these prophecies, where they're pointing, we have to see us in those things and the time we live in, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will profane my sanctuary. What he's saying there is, the temple in Jerusalem was something that the Jews looked very, very highly on. Even today, when you look at Israel, the little nation over there in the Middle East, they worship that wailing wall because they think it's part of the temple. They literally stand in front of it. They literally pray to it. They think they're praying to God, but they really, really that temple. And God did set up the temples, the first temple and the second temple as places that he would dwell in among his people. They were his sanctuary, but somewhere along the line, like other things that God has done, they began to worship it in place of God. But it was his sanctuary. He goes, I'll profane my sanctuary. What you hold so dear, what I said before you, that I gave all the orders and all the directions and instructions how to build, I'm going to profane it. It's going to be destroyed. I'm going to take it away from you. Now we know that the temple was destroyed once and certainly in 70 AD, it was destroyed again. Behold, I will profane my sanctuary. Your arrogant boast, you turned it into an idol.

You've turned it into something that it was never intended to be. It was God dwelling among you. And now your arrogant boast is as if you are the one who built it as if you are the one who was instrumental in it. The desire of your eyes, it's so precious in your eyes, the temple, it's not going to be there anymore, Israel. And we could look at the things of us today. What is the desire of our age? What do we hold so dear in our lives? Would it be the stock market? Would it be the military? Would it be the government? Would it be some person, you know, in the government or whatever? I will take away the desire of your eyes just like he took away the desire of Ezekiel's eyes.

I will take away the delight of your soul and your sons and daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. You will see them die. All these things are going to happen to you. You're going to lose the things you loved too because you have turned from God. He will, this is going to be part of the consequences of your rejection and failure to heed him and do his will. And you shall do, he says to the people, you shall do as I have done.

You shall not cover your lips, nor eat man's bread of sorrow. You're not going to mourn for 30 days either. You're not going to sit there and have the luxury of mourning, just like I did. The next day I was out and I had no time. God said, you get out and you don't do any of those things.

You're not going to have the time either. Why? Because they were going to be taken away from captivity. They were going to be in a place where they didn't have the time. They weren't going to sit in their land and mourn what had happened. They would mourn together, he says, in another place when they began to look and see what have we done?

What did we do? How did we do this to themselves? That leads to the repentance and the lamentation. If you read through the book of lamentation, you see that Judah, they, wow, everything God asked us to do, we didn't do any of it. What did we expect that we would just keep going in our own way?

You shall do as I have done. You shall not cover your lips nor eat man's bread of sorrow. Your turbans shall be on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You shall neither mourn nor weep, but you shall pine away in your iniquities and mourn with one another. They will loathe themselves. You will sit back and you will think we've lost it all.

Everything that was so dear to us, all the blessings that God has given us, we've lost it all and we can't blame him. We did it. You'll mourn among yourselves. When three times it says in Ezekiel, they will loathe themselves. If we go to Zechariah, second to the last book of the Old Testament, we read some interesting verses in verses 10 to 14 that go along this very same tenor that God has given Ezekiel to tell the house of Israel now. Zechariah 12, you see in verse one there, the burden of the word of the Lord against Israel, against Israel, and this is a prophecy for the future.

In verse 10, it says, I will pour on the house of David and on the adhabits of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication, okay? When he returns and then they will look on me, meaning they will see when Jesus Christ returns, they will look on me whom they have pierced. They did it. We all put Jesus Christ to death, right? That we have the Jews of Christ's lifetime who they put him to death and condemned him to death, but we all have done that. He died for all of us. He paid the price for all of our sins. Then they will look on me whom they have pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn.

They will grieve. We did that. We put Christ to death. He had to come and suffer those consequences in our stead that we could have the hope of eternal life and our sins could be forgiven, that we could enjoy and achieve the potential that God created man for. In that day, there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadad and Hadad-Rimon and the playing of the Giddo, and the land shall mourn every family by itself, the family of the house of David by itself, their wives by themselves, the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves, the family of the house of Levi, their wives by themselves, the family of Shimei by itself, all the families that remain and their wives by themselves, they will mourn, but there will be a mourning that will bring about the repentance, the zeal and the eternal commitment to God, like the repentance, the godly sorrow that Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 7, when that sinful man in 1 Corinthians 5 is put out of the church and he recognizes, I'm apart from God, God has cast me away.

I'm now part of the world. I have no hope, I have no future. What have I done? And he returns to God and God, and Paul says, as God inspires him, what zeal, what indignation, what energy is there that comes from repentance? And Israel will have that same thing.

The same thing we do when we take the time to look at ourselves and think, what have we done? Just yield ourselves to God and don't commit ourselves to this world that has nothing to offer.

So we were there in Zechariah 12. Let's go back, let me look at the time here. Oh, we got a little late start anyway. Zechariah or Ezekiel 24.

So Ezekiel suffered this, the people are going to be, they're gonna be sandals on their feet, termas on their head, they're gonna be gone. They're gonna be gone, but they will pine away. They will pine away in your iniquities and mourn with one another.

There's a hymn that we sing in the hymnal.

Something about we sat by the rivers of Babylon, and we wept, right? I mean, there's those verses that speak of this time because they wept when they realized what they had done. And verse 24, then God says to Ezekiel, or yeah, thus Ezekiel, thus Ezekiel, oh, thus Ezekiel is assigned to you, according to all that he has done, you shall do. He's acting it out, God is saying, you saw what Ezekiel did, this is gonna be you. Thus Ezekiel is assigned to you, according to all that he has done, you shall do. And when this comes, because when it surely came, they realized everything that Ezekiel had said that God inspired him to say, it did come to pass. Here's the phrase we see over and over in Ezekiel, then you shall know that I am the Lord God. If you had any doubt, when you see these prophecies come to pass, you know that I am God. And when you know that I'm God, and this is not coincidence, this is not just luck, this is not or bad luck, this is God, then you will know, you will know it to the depth of your being. And you, verse 25, you son of man, you son of man, will it not be in the day when I take from them their stronghold, gonna take away the things that they count, the things that they rely on, all those, just like he, one by one, the gods of Egypt, he showed Israel and Egypt, don't rely on those gods. Will it not be in the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy, and their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that on which they set their minds, their sons and their daughters, the things they set their minds on, rather than having the focus on God, having the focus on the calling that he has given us, and doing the things that he said. That's where our minds need to be. We need to go about our daily business, we need to go to our work, we need to go to school, we need to do things the best we can, because God tells us to do that. We need to learn all we need to do, and be an example to the people around us as we live God's way of life, not only in church or when we're around church people, but everywhere, because God says, you know, they didn't. Their minds were somewhere else, their minds were on the world, their minds were on whatever it was, but they should have been on God.

And God says, you know, Ezekiel, right, for right now, your prophesying's done. When we go into the next chapter, we see some things about some of the nations surrounding Israel as we move toward the time when the time of the end comes and Jesus Christ returns, but he says on that day, one who escapes, all these things are going to happen. They will see them happen exactly as Ezekiel said it would happen, and God says, and on that day, on that day, one who escapes will come to you to let you hear it with your ears. They didn't have internet, they didn't have TV, I will send someone to you, you will know that it happened exactly the way I told you it would happen, Ezekiel. Someone will come and tell you that. And on that day, your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped. It's almost as if some of the commentary say that God says, you just won't speak.

Well, maybe it means that he just wouldn't speak to the people anymore, no more prophecies, it was done. The time of warning was over, and God said, it's going to happen exactly the way he said, as we read back in verse 14, no more speaking. But when you hear it's done, on that day, your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped. You shall speak and no longer be mute. Thus, you will be assigned to them.

I know, he'll come back, or whatever God has him say, it'll be, there's Ezekiel. Now he's speaking to us again, and he will, we'll see some of those words later. Thus, you will be assigned to them, and they will know that I am the Lord. They'll know it when all these things come to pass, but when they see you again, Ezekiel, they'll know them as well.

When you read about Ezekiel being mute, and that time comes when it's done, the warnings are over, people have had their chance to turn back to God, the nations have had their chance to turn back to God, it's evident that they're not going to do that, should remind us of what it says back in Amos 8, right? That there will come a dearth of the hearing of the word. There will come a time when the warning message is no longer going out to the world. Hey, you know what? You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to turn to Amos, because it fits exactly what God said there in those last verses to Ezekiel. Amos 8, let me see, Amos 8 verse 10.

Yeah, Amos 8 verse 10. And this is a prophecy for the end time too, it's Israel, right? Israel, the future. I will turn your feasts in the morning and all your songs into lamentation. You'll be sorry for what you've done. I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head. I will make it like morning for an only sun, and it's end like a bitter day. Behold, verse 11, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send the famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water. Interesting, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

They won't hear those warnings anymore. It will stop until which time God has the people or the two witnesses or whatever his plan is, that those words stop, start again, but there'll come a time to stop. But for now, God would say, warning message go out, preach the gospel in all nations, but there will come a time when it's done. And then the world will be plunged into what it is that they have brought upon themselves. They shall wander from sea to sea. They shall wander from north to east. They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not fight it. Just like at the time of Ezekiel that we just read. So let's stop there with chapter 24, and we will pick it up. We will pick it up in chapter 25 next time.

And next time will not be next Wednesday. The council is in town next week. And I was hoping, I was hoping that I was gonna be able to get away a little bit away from the council, but the schedule came out this week and all the meetings are going at least through six o'clock. And so I'm not even gonna try, not even gonna try to do a Bible study next week, but we will do one in two weeks.