2. Malachi 3:10
“Bring all the tithes into
the storehouse, that there
may be food in My house,
and try Me now in this,”
says the LORD of hosts,
3. “If I will not open for you
the windows of heaven
and pour out for you such
blessing that there will
not be room enough to
receive it.”
Malachi 3:10
4. A family consists of many
generations.
Generations Lunch with
Young and Senior Adults
and their Families
following the 10:30 am
worship hour on June 22.
5. Tickets must be
purchased in advance and
will be available at the
2nd floor kiosk on
Sundays, June 8 and
June 15.
24. *This is the story of the
nation, but it is the story
of any individual as well.
*And because it is the
story of any individual, it
is the story of the whole of
mankind.
26. *They are, therefore,
extremely valuable for us-
--what happens to the
nation is exactly what
happens to us.
*Jesus is on every page of
the Old Testament.
27. By looking carefully, we
can see our problems and
circumstances exemplified
in the problems and
circumstance set forth in
the book of Ezekiel.
30. Ezekiel was a young man
when he was taken
captive, and he had
probably heard Jeremiah,
but likely had no personal
acquaintance with Daniel.
31. Ezekiel had been carried
away by Nebuchadnezzar
when the nation of Judah
was taken captive, as
described by Jeremiah's
great prophecy
(626 B.C. - 587 B.C.)
32. Jeremiah's sole purpose
was to reveal the sins of
the people and explain the
reason for the impending
disaster (destruction by
the Babylonian army and
captivity):
33. "And when your people
say, 'Why has the Lord
our God done all these
things to us?' you shall
say to them, 'As you have
forsaken Me and served
foreign gods in your land,
35. God's personal message to
Jeremiah,
"Attack you they will,
overcome you they can't,"
was fulfilled many times
in the Biblical narrative,
Jeremiah was attacked by
36. his own brothers, beaten
and put into the stocks by
a priest and false prophet,
imprisoned by the king,
threatened with death,
thrown into a cistern by
Judah's officials, and
37. opposed by a false
prophet.
*When Nebuchadnezzar
seized Jerusalem in 586
BC, he ordered that
Jeremiah be freed from
prison and treated well.
38. Psalm 137 is the psalm of
the remnant in Babylon:
By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down, yea,
we wept, when we
remembered Zion.
40. But at the same time
Ezekiel writes:
“The heavens were
opened, and I saw visions
of God” (Ezekiel 1:1).
What a contrast!
41. While these people had
already put their harps on
a willow tree and sat
down to weep, this man
Ezekiel was seeing visions
of God!
42. The message of Ezekiel is
the most spiritual of all
the prophets because he
dealt particularly with the
Person of God.
43. It is said,
“Ezekiel is the prophet of
the Spirit,
Isaiah is the prophet of
the Son, and
Jeremiah is the prophet of
the Father.”
44. For a period of about ten
years, the false prophets
had been saying that the
Hebrew people would
return to Judah and that
the city of Jerusalem
would not be destroyed.
46. Jeremiah had sent a
message to Babylon
saying the city would be
destroyed, and Ezekiel
confirmed his message.
47. Ezekiel warned the people
that they must turn to
God before they could
return to Jerusalem.
48. When the time came, a
very small remnant did
turn to God, and they did
return to Jerusalem but
they were very
discouraged.
49. *Ezekiel began his
ministry five years after
he was taken captive at
about the age of thirty.
*In many ways, he spoke
in the darkest days of the
nation.
51. Ezekiel had to confront
the false hope given by
the false prophets and the
indifference and
despondency begotten in
the days of sin and
disaster.
52. The people would not
listen to his message.
Therefore, he resorted to
different methods of
getting God’s message
across.
53. *Instead of speaking in
parables, as the Lord Jesus
did, he acted out the
parables.
*He actually acted out
some very interesting
stunts.
54. Because God intended
Ezekiel’s life to be a sign
to Israel, he does all kinds
of strange things.
He shuts himself up in his
home, he binds himself,
and he is struck dumb.
56. he ate bread that was
prepared in an unclean
manner, and he shaved
his head and beard, which
was considered a shame
in his particular calling.
57. We read in Ezekiel 24:24,
“Thus Ezekiel is unto you
a sign: according to all
that he hath done shall ye
do: and when this cometh,
ye shall know that I am
the Lord GOD.”
58. The people would not
listen to his words, so he
would act them out, and
he attracted a great deal of
attention to God’s
message that way.
59. Ezekiel is the prophet of
the glory of the Lord.
There were three prophets
of Israel who spoke when
they were out of the land.
60. *They are Ezekiel, Daniel,
and John (who wrote
from the island of
Patmos).
*All three of these men
wrote what is called an
apocalypse (un-covering).
61. They all used highly
symbolic language;
yet they saw the brightest
light and held the highest
hope of all the prophets.
62. Ezekiel saw the Shekinah
glory of the Lord leave
Solomon’s temple, but he also
saw the return of the glory of
the Lord which was projected
into the future and will come
to pass during the Kingdom
Age, or the Millennium.
64. *The meaning of Ezekiel is
seen in this coming of the
glory during the Kingdom
Age.
*Ezekiel looked beyond
the sufferings of Christ to
the glory that followed.
65. As Peter said of the
prophets, “they saw the
sufferings and they saw
the glory that would
follow” (1 Peter 1:11).
70. Ezekiel ministered, as did
Jeremiah, to a nation
experiencing judgment for
their sins. If God spared
not Israel, His Chosen,
when they sinned, why
not America?
71. Ezekiel was born in
approximately 627 B.C.
and lived in a time of
moral decline, distress
and uprooting.
72. His messages were not
well received at first, but
did ultimately result in
the nation being purged
of idolatrous practices.
73. He was married and
owned his own home.
His wife died during his
ministry.
75. This is good for us,
because we can get so
focused on God's grace
that we tend to forget
there is also a governing
role of God, and that His
glory requires justice.
76. Ezekiel was very direct.
He carefully vindicated
God's justice throughout
the book, although he
deals more in symbol and
allegory than any other
Old Testament prophet.
78. Ezekiel was well suited
for the calling God gave
him, which included a
remarkable vision of
God's throne in Chapter 1.
79. This was a dramatic
vision of God which never
left him-it is not just
introduced in the first
chapter, it is referenced all
the way through the book.
81. Most scholars regard it as
the details for the Temple
to be established during
the Millennium on the
Planet Earth.
82. The Opportunity
You cannot really
understand the caldron of
the Middle East today
without carefully
studying this book.
83. If you were invited to a
reception which would
bring you into contact
with a world-famous
author, you would, of
course, run out and
quickly review his book.
84. Well, you may soon be in the
company of one of the most
fascinating characters of the
Old Testament, and when
you are introduced to him,
you will want to be able to
declare, "I enjoyed your
book!“
87. Ezekiel was 25 years old
when he was taken to
Babylon and he was thirty
years old at the time of his
call (Ezek. 1:1), the normal
age for a priest to begin
ministry (Num. 4:1-3, 23).
88. He was older than Daniel
and prophesied during
the first twenty or twenty-
five years of that seventy-
year period when Israel
was held captive by
Babylon.
89. It's likely that Daniel and
Ezekiel knew each other
before the Captivity,
though there's no
evidence they saw each
other in Babylon.
90. Like Jeremiah (1:2),
Zechariah (1:1), and John
the Baptist (Luke 1:5),
Ezekiel (God strengthens)
was called by God from
being a priest to serving
as a prophet.
91. It would have been much easier
for Ezekiel to remain a priest, for
priests were highly esteemed by
the Jews, and a priest could read
the Law and learn everything he
needed to know to do his work
whereas prophets were usually
despised and persecuted.
93. They received their
messages and orders from
the Lord as the occasion
demanded and could
never be sure what would
happen next.
94. *It was dangerous to be a
prophet.
*Most people resent being
told about their sins and
prefer to hear messages of
cheer, not declarations of
judgment.
96. Jeremiah had been
ministering in Jerusalem
for four years when
Ezekiel was born in 622
B.C., but surely as he grew
up, he paid attention to
what Jeremiah was saying.
97. Ezekiel's prophetic ministry was
greatly needed in Babylon
because false prophets
abounded and were giving the
Jewish people false hopes of a
quick deliverance (usually by
Egypt) and a triumphant return
to their land (Jer. 5:30-31; 27:1-11;
28:1-17).
101. Jeremiah's letter told the
Jews that they would be
in Babylon for seventy
years and therefore
should settle down, raise
families, and pray for
their captors.
102. But Jeremiah also
announced the ultimate
fall of Babylon, a message
the exiles were only too
eager to hear.
107. It also means tearing
down the flimsy thought
structures that false
prophets build and
constructing in their place
lasting buildings on solid
foundations of truth.
113. The kingdom of Judah had
suffered greatly at the hands
of victorious Babylon, and
many Jewish people
wondered if Jehovah was still
the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob (see Psalm 74).
115. God’s chosen people were
exiles in a pagan land,
their Promised Land was
devastated, Jerusalem was
in enemy hands, and the
temple had been robbed
of its precious treasures.
116. It was a dark day for Israel,
and the first thing Ezekiel
needed to understand was that,
no matter how discouraging
the circumstances, God was
still on the throne
accomplishing His divine
purposes in the world.
118. There are many unexplained
mysteries in the vision
Ezekiel had, but one message
comes through with clarity
and power: Our God is the
sovereign Lord of Israel and
of all the nations of the earth.
123. 2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV
14 if My people who are called
by My name will humble
themselves, and pray and seek
My face, and turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear
from heaven, and will forgive
their sin and heal their land.
