Ezekiel (Session 3) Chapters 4-5

well we're in essa kal Ezekiel as we might say chapters 4 & 5 the colorful character this guy in many many ways as you'll see tonight now just a quick snapshot where we are on the pan aura of time from Abraham after the call of Abraham we had the rise of the nation and then the exodus from Egypt they went down as a family came back as a nation then we grew into the monarchy and then of course when they when the David I saw him takes over when Solomon dies is a civil war breaking into two houses which the northern kingdom gets obliterated by Assyria 721 BC and then the southern kingdom continues but it also goes from bad to worse and finally God has them captured put into exile under Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon the Exile is a major portion of their history that's where we're dealing with here and in that from between the monarchy and the post exile period we have the Babylonian captivity 70 years nominally I'll explain that in a minute well let's just get right into it the Babylonian Empire the first siege takes Daniel and his young friends captive because they were part of the royal line Nebuchadnezzar put sets up a vassal King and takes hostages to assure his his fealty and that's the first siege of three despite protestations by Jeremiah and others the they tried to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar and so he lays down a second siege replaces Joe chin with Zedekiah and and he also takes some more hostages namely Ezekiel and and send some more and some more or captives are taken to Babylon and then once again despite the preaching of Ezekiel in Babylon and Jeremiah and Jerusalem they rebel a third time this time Nebuchadnezzar has had a belly full at all he levels the place goes back third siege and has Jerusalem destroyed so we have three different sieges and most people fail to recognize some details here the servitude of the nation begins with the first siege at that point on the nation is in servitude to Babylon but in that seventh it was predicted to be seventy years and it turns out to be seventy years to the very day incidently now it ends of course when Cyrus conquers Babylon reads a letter written to him and that he finds the Book of Isaiah and it's so impressed that he releases them to go back and rebuild their temple even gives them financial subsidies to do so that ends the servitude of the nation Jerusalem was still desolate however truce and that the person in power of course starts with that so each one extensively prophesied in advance Isaiah 29 Jeremiah 25 and elsewhere and Daniel of course was taken captive he ends up late in his life probably sixty-seven years into the 70 year period he's reading Jeremiah and recognizing that the captivity is about over because Jeremiah predicted it would be seven years so he goes into prayer and that leads to a an interrupted prayer when Gabriel interrupts Daniel and gives him the fabulous twenty a 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9 so second Chronicles covers it up to the end of that period the desolations of Jerusalem continued though for a while because under Ezra they try to rebuild their temple and can't get very far because they don't have a right to protect themselves to build a wall and and keep the intruders from harassing them so it is until Nehemiah comes along and he's the cupbearer to the king and he gets the venn king and he gets authority to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and that the decree by art exerts ease is the thing that triggers the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel and that ends the desolations of Jerusalem and so that's that brings us up you know Jeremiah and Daniel and Ezekiel her roughly contemporaries Jeremiah's older Daniel and Ezekiel probably may have been studying at his feet in the temple before all this but in a case Daniel it's a young teenager when he is transported and to ballon Ezekiel is 25 he's there five years when he began he comes of age to be 30 and that's when he's called to be a prophet by God other prophets Haggai Zechariah and Malachi are known as the post exile prophets because they really prophesy after the Babylonian captivity we're going to be part by ourselves obviously with Ezekiel's ministry during the Babylonian captivity Esther by the way comes just ahead of about thirty years ahead of Nehemiah and is crucial to the whole continuation of the temple and love the Messianic hope but oh let's not run in Ezekiel the first three chapters had to do with the call of the Prophet chapters 4 through 24 from 4 through about the midway of the book is all about God's judgment on Jerusalem and we'll be dealing of course for that tonight the the prophecies from 4 to 24 were given before the siege so we're in this period of time Ezekiel has been transported in the second siege it's the 3rd siege that is destroys Jerusalem and that's the one that's hanging over them here from chapters 25 to 32 we're going to see that God's judgment on the nation's we'll see a list of nations they're all Muslim that were dealing with there and that those prophecies were actually given during the siege the siege lasts over about 18 months so during that year and a half is when those chapters were drafted then from 33 to 48 it really gets wild that's probably one of the real primary reasons many of us are here is to get into these fabulous chapters from 33 to 37 we have the dry bones and all of that and then of course you have gog and magog chapters 38 and 39 which many people think is right on our horizon here and then of course from 40 through 48 we have this strange temple that most of us presume is the Millennial temple there's part there's some other views about that we'll talk about when we get there so though in those that those chapters course were given after the siege so we're probably in chapters 4 through 24 we're gonna be preoccupied with this impending siege by Nebuchadnezzar now call it prophet was life as we've done those three chapters we're now moving into the God's judgment on Jerusalem now Ezekiel's task was to confront Israel with their sin and warn her of her impending destruction she's already been captured these are slaves now in Babylon but the city of Jerusalem is still there and if it'll behave itself and Ezekiel is called to do some strange ways to communicate he doesn't just preach a sermon he actually makes a fool of himself in some very strange ways to get a cross he really does some bizarre behavior it's so bizarre that some scholars think that he may have been mentally afflicted that's I don't think he was but that it's that it's that weird as you'll see and these things included signs and that's what we're going to see in these two chapters chapters 4 & 5 tonight he does preach a couple of sermons in the next two chapters and then he shares some wild visions chapters 8 through 11 the cherubim are going to be there again like we did in Chapter 1 and so forth strange stuff but in each case that we're going to see here in these group of chapters the emphasis is on sin and the ensuing suffering brought about by that rebellion that sin against God so signs are going what we're gonna be indulging in here these are symbolic actions and it wasn't just a zekiel it did this sort of thing a Hydra Isaiah and Jeremiah all have recorded similar kinds of things not quite as bizarre or as consistently bizarre as Ezekiel but it's not unique to him as the point but Ezekiel has a bunch of these strange things that we'll just encounter as we go we won't try to pick up here so chapter for us where we are chapter 4 verse 1 though also Son of Man there again that title is like son of the dust not to be confused when Jesus Christ uses that term to designate his humanity there it's an elevation concept here it is son of the dust is the way to express think of it now also son of man take the a tile and lay it before the and portray upon it the city even Jerusalem and lay siege against it and build a fort against it and cast a mount against it and set the camp also against it that sent battering rams against it round about you might visualize Ezekiel playing in the sandbox that's sort of the the atmosphere here and the term tile here is actually a soft clay tablet or a writing pad or it also could be a sun-baked brick which is a major building material that's what we have over there under the glass is one that was sent to me from by the from Babylon by the Marines that are guarding Babylon and you could see the cuneiform writing on it and that sort of thing it could have been a brick like that or simply a writing pad kind of thing but but Ezekiel is told to sketch on it make it a emblem if you will of Jerusalem and now and lay it before they portray by the city in Jerusalem and lay siege against it and build a fort against it or a siege wall or a wheeled watchtower visualize him like a child might play with soldiers and stuff to build a siege against that as the City of Jerusalem and watched you and and they also cast a mount against it or a mound that's think that's the hot so that they can hide behind the from from the arrows and so forth that's to connect the tower with the walls of the besieged and then a and camp against it the term there actually implies a detachment of soldiers and and then and with with battering rams round against it or breakers and you can see illusions of these kinds of two techniques all through the scripture but basically what Ezekiel is instructed to do is to play soldiers and model if you will the city under siege and and so he probably did this in some public place sort of as a graphic like a skit or like a attention-getting gimmick if you will God is using Ezekiel to do something very obvious in order to get it through their heads that Jerusalem is going to be besieged and plundered I understand even though the Israelites were captives they held the hope that Jerusalem would rebel and throw this yoke of captivity off their backs and both Jeremiah over there in Jerusalem and Ezekiel here was essentially preaching that Nebuchadnezzar is God's instrument this captivity is a judgment of God and they should yield to it and in fact Jeremiah gets thrown in a dungeon it was like that was like being a traitor preaching the way he was and but Jerusalem was going to be received and plundered is the point that Ezekiel's trying to get across see they were they rebelled once against Nebuchadnezzar that led to the second siege in which Ezekiel is among those taken captive but Jerusalem still was intact it was a vassal a subservient area but if they rebel the threat was and then beacon s was gonna level the place which he did that's the siege that's worth coming here so continued verse three moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city and set thy face against it and it shall be besieged thou shalt lay siege against it this shall be a sign to the house of Israel now this an iron pan it's like a flat plate used for baking and the whole idea of using this pan was to imply that there was no chance of negotiating there was no chance of them leaving when the Chaldeans surrounded Jerusalem they were digging him they were prepared to be there until they win and they indeed were there for probably at least 18 months maybe longer and so so God is using all this as an object lesson and to warn them that they are going to be in big trouble and he's going to go on to describe just how serious this is going to get but then he instructs Ezekiel got instructs Ezekiel to do something kind of weird widely misunderstood he tells zekiel I vow also upon thy left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquities on thy left side left his north and right uh south because he's facing the sunrise okay and so the north northern kingdom is the house of Israel with speaking in effect for I've laid upon thee the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days three hundred and ninety days so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel strangely the Septuagint version of the Old Testament has a hundred ninety and no one's quite sure why some scribes may have changed that to try to make it fit something some theory they had but in any case 360 is three hundred ninety days is the accepted text of the Masoretic and elsewhere but anyway for three hundred and ninety days that's you know a month thirteen months he is to lie on one side now he didn't do that continuously he did that ceremonially at a certain time of day he would do that and to to to get across the idea that they are in you know that's how long the siege is going to be and so 390 days and when now is to accomplish them lie again on the right side and thou shalt bear the iniquity in the house of Judah 40 days I've appointed thee each day for a year well no this is getting a little complicated first of all he's gonna lie for 390 days on one side and 40 days on another for a total of four hundred and thirty days okay this is only one of two places in the Bible where it's a day for a year don't think that's the general rule in fact it is well the forty days and by the way didn't we he didn't lie this way for 24 hours that's the that's not what most scholars believe is operating here because the very next sign that we're going to talk about includes some actions that Ezekiel was to do during the time he's laying there so he's got some errands to do so it's apparently so for a certain time when he had office hours so to speak that's what he would be found laying on that side and that and so on so and he probably did this for a portion of each day in other words okay still quite a wild vote by the way you're talking you know a year and a half of all this stuff you don't have appointed thee each day for a year what it actually says literally a day for a year a day for a year it's repeated twice in the Hebrew text to call attention the fact of the same thing that occurs in numbers 14 verse 34 when God at Kadesh Barnea tells them that they're gonna wander in the wilderness for 40 years it's a day it's a year for every day remember for that prize were sent into the land for 40 days they came back and all but two of them were terrified and we can't go and can't gave them the evil report oh you sent us here to die and then God says no your children live you're gonna die you know so they're gonna wander for 40 days actually 40 years in the wilderness that famous wilderness wanderings and it was a year for a day there okay and so again that's the same principle here it's a date for a day for a year in other words for the 40 days that the spies were had wicked or annoying they're gonna have 40 years then to wander through it so this is intentionally expressed in such a way as to link it to that very event they're in numbers 14 are we together okay now the three hundred ninety days you're supposed to lie on this left side for three hundred ninety days and that's about thirteen months right the siege of Jerusalem is computed apparently to last about eighteen months if we deduct from that eighteen months five months interval when the besiegers of Jerusalem with drew back in jeremiah 30:7 we discovered that Pharaoh's army shows up so they redrew they withdrew for about five months until they went away and then they went at it again there was a five month interval if we take that five month interval away from the eighteen you get the thirteen months that's one way that some of the scholars are trying to understand the three hundred and ninety days of this of the siege okay now the number of days of the it's pretty close to the siege number of 390 is the idea it may not read by the way the 390 may not really be referring to the siege at all people overlook that but let's go on here it would seem to though it would seem to three hundred ninety years Ezekiel bares the guilt of the iniquity which the house of Israel had borne for three hundred and ninety years a year for a day and possibly this is reckoning from the first apostasy under Jeroboam to the destruction of Jerusalem which will be completed and which completed the ruin of those small remains of those that had incorporated with Judah when they were captive bear in mind see the house of Israel was taken obliterated in 722 we're talking about a century later those that remain got commingled with the Judah and that's the that would tie it together if you will so that's one reckoning for the 390 the 430 days our mystery though most scholars did not believe that he laid there continued for the obviously for this foreigner three days he went out in a certain point each day and lay on the side as a public statement but that again is an inference we have whether he was actually there all time we don't really know that's just what most people believe most scholars assume that he did this in a ceremonial way representing the three hundred ninety years that the northern kingdom spent in idolatry and the 40 years of the southern kingdom did likewise 390 plus 40 equals 430 that sounds pretty good and we'll let it lay there for now would be when we get through a lot of the other stuff we'll go back and revisit this and you'll discover then if you start trying to look at this more closely it doesn't quite work and I want to we'll deal with that when we get there let's move on here God says to Zico therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem and thine arm shall be uncovered and thou shalt prophesy against it but it's like your sleeves rolled up the iron because you they they had a role but when they got work they would uncover their arms to do something so the arms uncovered thou shall prophesy against and behold I will lay bands upon thee and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another till thou has ended the days of thy siege so apparently somehow the Lord has arranged some shackles or something so that he can't turn over while he's laying down to make that point and so that's what causes a little confusion trying to visualize exactly how he's handling this take thou also on to the wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and Fitch's and put them in one vessel and make the bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side 390 days shalt thou eat thereof now this combination of grains is what the poor would do see the rich would have would have the best stuff but if you don't have much of anything you dump what you've got and put what you've got together so this is intended to communicate a form of scarcity and the millet of course is the grass grows and matures without rain the seeds are ground to flower and mixed with other cereals to form breadstuffs for the poor so that's not a desirable thing but it's a desperate thing if for the poor that's what you'd be dealing with it the the word that's been used there for millet these are all common grains on the one hand but so the supplies are so scarce that several foods had to be combined to provide enough for a meal that's the what that's the thought that's here and if you want to get the best exposition of this whole desolation of Jerusalem Jeremiah who was there really spends a lot on that's what the Book of Lamentations is really all about and a couple of verses forthcoming will do the same where they describe pathetically the terrors of famine you and I have no capacity to imagine what it's like to be surrounded by an enemy and deliberately starved out and will get a will get a little glimpse of it here as we go says I my meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight and by the way to eat bread by weight is a Jewish expression for poverty but anyway I shall eat by weight twenty shekels a day from time to time shalt thou eat it twenty seconds to say that's about a shekel is about four tenths of an ounce I've brought a pot so his food allowance was about eight ounces of food a day per day okay thou shall drink also water my measure the sixth part of a hint I'm to time shalt thou drink that's about a pint and a half per day of water tough stuff and thou shall eat it as Barney cakes and thou shalt bake it with the dung that cometh out of man in their sight now it's not what you think it is that means they use the dung for fuel to burn he's not mixing the dung in the in the dough that's what your first thing no no he's talking about using it as a fuel bread baked on human dung of course is revolting polluting and it's also against the law in the Torah Deuteronomy 14 23 Leviticus five and seven and that was not normally done it was very commonly done to do this today in Arabic countries to use cow manure mixed with straw it'll dry hard and it'll burn for fires for he smells awful but works okay till they don't have wood there I'm a desert see Lord said even less shall be that shall the children is who eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles whither I will drive them see this was offensive just even using that for fuel is offensive because it makes its ceremony not kosher hey it's not ceremony we're worried about it survival is to put really what's under going here you're gonna you're gonna act like Gentiles I'm gonna treat you like Gentiles that's what God is in effect saying to foreign nations and their products were considered unclean hosea 7 was in 9 so forth if they insisted upon taking on heathen worship heathen idols and so on cuz it's ok I'm gonna put you at the level of the heathen that's the thought that's coming through here see Ezekiel was a priest of course and he of course knew about dietary laws but those are simply ceremonial issues of course what we're talking what God someone here is survival rations and so Ezekiel's trying to convey the idea that they're coming up with a seed situation see their seeds yet but he's trying to communicate to them what's coming and that should if they're paying attention scare them they're not gonna have the luxury of complying with dietary laws they're gonna be lucky to find anything to eat famine is coming you and I have no grasp of famine but that's what's coming here Ezekiel says then said I o Lord God behold my soul hath not been polluted from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which diet of itself or is torn in pieces neither came their abominable flesh into my mouth this is the one of the few prayers in this book there's a prayer Ezekiel saying you know I have kept myself clean I have never violated so he please for some respite here and God gives them a little bit this is one of the few prayers in this book abominable flesh of course is a term refers to meat that's offered to idols and all the things he mentioned were in principle dietary laws from Leviticus and Deuteronomy you might remind you of the strange scene in Acts chapter 10 where Peter sees this vision of the strength of this big sheets with all these unclean animals and God says take and eat Peter protests and he's they're not kosher and God says don't not anymore you know don't call and clean that which I bless this all so similar situations well they did a little different situation here but should remind you that anyway next verse then he said unto me lo God see he prayed to God and diseases that he said to me though I have given the cows dung for man's dung and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith so Ezekiel prays and gets a little bit of a respite he's okay you can use a cow dung not man's dung for the fuel for your fires so that's a bit of a substitution there the few the same kind of fuel that's used to this day by the better ones and the fellow hina of Arabian Egypt let's move on verse 16 moreover he said unto me son of man behold I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem the staff of bread be a staff is what holds us up when we're Cellini's they will breads also what held them up it's the basic basic food and they shall eat bread by wait that's a phrase in Hebrew that implies poverty they'll eat bread by weight and with care and they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment that they may want bread and water and BIA studied one with another and consume away for their iniquity who gods upset their rebellion and he's he's there he's there to punish them that's what's going to come through here now Ezekiel is communicating to his his public with these object lessons these skits these these maneuvers trying to get across to them that what they should expect to be under siege conditions there within the some period of time they're going to be under siege in Jerusalem about summit man take me a sharp knife and take the barbers razor and cause it to pass upon thine hand upon my beard and take the egg take the balances to weigh and divide the hair Wow to shave the hair was considered a shame especially for a priest it's reminiscent well first of all take a sharp knife the actual word there is kind of which is a sword it's a weapon okay pass upon my head upon thy beard that's or figuratively of sweeping the city clean of its inhabitants that it take me balances to weigh and divide the divine justice is accurate that's what we're gonna find out here there's some very specific things God is going to point out and of course hair is a sign of consecration of a priest that's what leads to them as a right vow and those kinds of of ceremonial idioms so shaving the hair was a form of shame and so that's why this was a symbol of the heaven that's right Val in Jeremiah 41 it was a sign of a catastrophe and job one Isaiah 22 and Jeremiah 7 it was a sign of mourning to shave it's a grief in other words now Ezekiel is supposed to take three balances here implying that God is very precise in measuring what he's going to do here the punishment that's got a lot of each he's divide the hair into three thirds and what happened third of the hair was symbolic as to what would happen to a third of the Israelites that's what he's laying out here thou shall burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are fulfilled and thou shall take a third part and smite about it with a knife in the third part thou shalt scatter in the wind and I will draw out a sword after them three thirds first will be and what Ezekiel is doing is shaves his head shaves his beard and takes those takes all that hair and divides it carefully the three we're using the balances precisely into three groups and he's going to take a third part and burn it the third party's going to take a knife and go around town chopping it up into pieces and then a third he's going to scatter into the wind and there are a few hairs that are left over he's gonna fold in his in his robe oh really that's interesting the last third were scattered and this group included those who went down to Egypt taking Jeremiah's he would actually happen after the the final see the reaction seeds in Jerusalem is that the last third are scattered and a group of them take Jeremiah with them down to Egypt that's that's the last we hear of him but so judgment of the thirds one-third was to be burned that's symbolic of a consuming pestilence of family one third was smitten with the sword and that was going to be the destiny of many of the inhabitants the third was to be scattered to the wind a figure of the scattered exiles that will all cry out her here in verse 12 now it's if this may remind you in your study of Revelation when you get to chapter 8 the first four trumpet judgments are called the judgment of the thirds a third of this a third of that a third of that each one the last three are the the three walls but the first four are judgment of the thirds in Revelation the pattern is provocative that same kind of patterning here continuing by verse three now should also take care of a few a number and bind them in dice skirts in the word there is actually a refers to Ezekiel's rope take then take of them again and cast them into the bits of the fire and burn them in the fire for their up shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel so there's a small remnant of God's people who eventually returned to the city that's pictured by the few hairs that are bound up in Ezekiel's rope now what's interesting to me as I research this was the Nate the actual word used for skirts or robe and that meant that was simple enough but the word is knopf and when you translate that that word can mean a wing and extremity an edge a winged or border a corner a shirt or a skirt or the corner of a garment that's what a cannot Fizz what startled me as I research this a little further that's the same word that is used for the wings of the cherubim that we saw in Chapter one we always visualize wings being wings well they may not be the kind of wings we visualize that was the term term that Ezekiel uses the same term he uses for a robe so I wouldn't make much of that I just want to call your attention that we often are limited by our presumptions that we make money with the come off and it's translated a hundred and eight times in the Old Testament seventy four times it's translated like a wing like an Angels wing or something fourteen times it's a skirt and a couple of times its borders corners ends and and and so forth so same word of course is used in cherubim in Chapter one and we're going to see it again in chapter ten the word fire is used here many things are included in the concept of fire prophetically and one of the allegorical idioms is being tried by fire right we're familiar with the refining of silver and gold but here in Ezekiel's prophecy it is Israel that is being refined by fire fire here is tribulation tribulation the idea of fire being used for refining is used throughout the scripture in many different contexts one of the most interesting ones is the fiery furnace in daniel those three young men were in the fire but preserved through it see and so that again if the friary furnace is idiomatic of the great tribulation nebuchadnezzar being the antichrist the three children being in the fiery furnace that is many people see that as a as a type or an anticipatory metaphor of the of the Great Tribulation if that's true where is Daniel Daniel's not in the fire he's been removed in actual history he probably was drawn to some affair for the King out of town that's why they took advantage of that to try to nail his three friends but but idiomatically it's interesting that if Daniel represents a church he's not there Shadrach Meshach and Abednego were preserved through the fire by the Son of God who joined them there because they did not bow to the image Nebuchadnezzar was the ruler of the entire known world at that time so he was a type in the minds of many scholars a type of the Antichrist and thus is parallel in some sense to revelation 13 for those of you that are tying that together so fifty four times in Ezekiel God makes the claim and they shall know that I am the Lord Ezekiel's whole theme is the recognition that God is God and early on as Eagles primary message point out that they were to repent of their idolatry he warns them but they don't listen then judgment Falls to demonstrate to them and all the nations around them that the Lord is God it's his reputation that's at stake if he doesn't judge them he's he's tarnishing his own reputation we need to understand that in Zechariah 13:8 9 something we're going to touch on several times here I'll leave it for now so we'll come here okay Syke 5:5 thus saith the Lord God this is Jerusalem I have said it in the midst of the nations and countries that are around many scholars regard Jerusalem as the navel of the universe it's the center it's a very it's in a very vulnerable position it's the land bridge between Africa and Asia and in effect Europe and yet that that the vulnerability could also be its major leverage if had gotten its act together but it didn't Jerusalem was the center of God's providential choice and care and it's so designated in the Exodus 19 Deuteronomy 7 and elsewhere and Jerusalem have changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations in other words they're more evil than the Gentiles the heathens change my judgments into wickedness more than the nation's and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her for they have refused my judgments in my statutes they have not walked in them meaning Jerusalem this whole focus of these chapters is Jerusalem that's where Ezekiel starting we're going to talk about the other nations later that's what's in focus here so Jerusalem is wickedly rebelled and for the heinous of its sin you can check a number of other passages I won't take the time to think it's pretty straightforward together of that here therefore thus saith the Lord God because he multiplied more than the nations that are round about you he have not walked in my statutes neither kept my judgments neither have done according to the judgments of the nation's that around about you therefore thus saith the Lord God behold I even I am against thee and will execute judgments in the midst of thee and the sight of all the nations he's deliberate he's not really the only judge me is gonna do it conspicuously in the public visibility public sins require public made judgments and I will do envy that which I have not done where unto I will not do any more like the like because of all the abominations that's an interesting phrase I will do envy that which I have not done and we're on to I will not do any more of the like because of all thine abominations and that there's an allusion to that in Daniel 12 that Jesus Christ quotes when he labels the final tribulation of all of this as the Great Tribulation such as the world I've not seen to that time where ever would see again so God is going to vindicate his holiness before the entire world and that's going to include unparalleled punishments upon Israel from the Lord therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee and the son shall eat their fathers and I will execute judgments in thee and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds that's the Diaspora being predicted their cannibalism testified in 2nd King 6 Leviticus 26 and elsewhere these horrors were predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy 28 and were verified by Jeremiah and in his book of lamentations chapter 2 and fourth you and I can't imagine that you and I cannot imagine that being people being so desperate that they would eat their children I mean that that just is unimaginable wherefore as I live saith the Lord God surely because thou has defiled by sanctuary with all thy detestable things and with all vitamins therefore will I also diminish they neither shall mine eyes spare neither will I have any pity we're going to see these details when we get to chapter 8 and we says I'll diminish the what it really the Hebrew replies I'll withdraw my eyes I'll turn my head away the third part of the will die with pestilence and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee and the third part shall fall by the sword round about thee then I will scatter a third part into all the winds and I will draw out a sword after them and all these judgments were referred to in verse 2 earlier and by the way these thirds are not limited to history here how many Jews were around before 1939 about 18 million how many died in the ovens in the Holocaust six million about a third the first Holocaust the big Holocaust the Nazi Holocaust took one Jew in three succor ayah 13 verse 8 and 9 describes the next Holocaust the Great Tribulation as Jesus Christ labeled it and according to Zechariah 13 verse 8 and 9 it will take two out of three two-thirds will die so this perspective is forward-looking thus shall my Nanna be anger be accomplished and I will cause my fury to rest upon them and I will be comforted and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal when I have accomplished my fury in them by the Lord has spoken it that's a solemn expression masturbation upon the part of God and that occurs all through this book with similar phrases moreover I will make the waist and a reproach among woven among the nations that are around thee about thee in the sight of all that passed by so shall it be a reproach and a taunt and instruction and astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and the furious rebukes I the LORD have spoken it when I shall send upon thee the evil arrows of famine which shall be for their destruction and which I will send to destroy you and I will increase the famine upon you and will break your staff of bread so will I send upon you famine and evil beasts and they shall be reeve thee and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee and I will bring the sword upon thee I the LORD have spoken it there it is again four acts of judgment famine evil beasts pestilence and sword and all these will appear in chapter 14 in detail when we get there all these were predicted in Leviticus 26 we're gonna look at here it a little bit with some surprises but that's the flavor at all and Deuteronomy 32 you can use that Deuteronomy 28 through 32 as the narrative of the newsreels of the Holocaust in revelation 6 7 8 on goes these judgments on Israel have significance to the world to Israel and for obviously for the survivors will deal with survivors in the next session there's a concept of the remnant these few hairs we had the third a third and a third but there's a few hairs left over the remnant that concept is dominant theme in the Old Testament from the from the fall of Jerusalem 587 on but you can also find that concept back in Genesis how many did were saved by Noah and Noah's Flood out of the entire world several billion people as to by some scholars estimates and how many survived eight four guys their four wives of the entire world God saved eight as we go through both historically prophetically we're going to constantly run through this into this concept of the remnant a small group God always has a small group of his own isaiah 6 the substance there is really a stump referring to the root of Jesse a prophecy again I want you to notice the remnant in this in this case is gathered from not just from Babylon but from all the countries and this remnant this promise of a remnant is going to be in all the promises that have restoration which we're going to get into later in the book in Isaiah 11 it says when they're called back to the land the second time it would be the final time the first time they're called back to the land is after the Babylon captivity the second time is the one we've seen since May 14th the 48th to understand how relevant the times in which we are living and watch the role of Jerusalem all through prophecy by the end of chapter 5 got pronounced on Jerusalem the for scourge is a famine evil beasts pestilence and sword ezekiel is going to root these judgments in the torah in the five books of moses specifically leviticus 20:6 but let's talk now about i want to double back on these four hundred and thirty days because nobody has gone through all the commentators they all admit that they don't really know what it's talking about is it historical or is it her prophetic that's the first question some scholars say the numbers refer to four hundred thirty years of Gentile domination from cahaya chins exile 597 BC ending in 167 BC when the Maccabean revolt began that's a viewpoint in some economy it has some problems first there's no indication that 597 should be the starting point rather than 592 that's the year that Ezekiel began prophesying or instead of 586 the year the city actually fell so there's those issues secondly the view does not explain why 390 years were assigned to Israel they had gone into captivity that is into Assyria back in 722 BC 125 years before 597 when the time assigned to them actually began them so that doesn't quite work third it's not clear that 167 BC was actually the year that would they freed from the yoke of Syria that was the year that of the beginning of the struggle it took three years so that doesn't it doesn't quite work the 390 years in reference of the sin of Israel was somewhat specific being the years from the setting up of the Cavs by Jeroboam first Kings twelve that is from 975 to 585 that's about the year of the Babylonia don't like the word about in these things perhaps the 40 years of Judah refers to that part of Manasses fifty five year reign in which he had not yet prepayment and which were expressly told was the cause of God's removal of Judah not withstanding Josiah's Reformation that's not bad that that that's Silla that's again it's an approximate situation are the three now the three hundred ninety years in this two urgent somebody's got 190 and that's another whole problem but the penalties of Israel Judah would wouldn't why would they be concurrent for the last 40 years and if they are great what kicks them off where do they start from the disruption of the monarchy 922 - the return is at five thirty it's three hundred and eighty four years which is about 390 but doesn't quite fit perhaps this could be looked on as a period of iniquity a punishment for the Northern Kingdom it's one thought in the books of Kings the total length of the reigns of the kings of Judah injera from Rome to Jeddah kaya is given as 394 and a half years but again this can't be equated with their Israel's iniquity or punishment working from 734 the ravages till gas blazer to the x-values hundred forty eight years which somehow might explain the come near the hundred fifty years that the the Septuagint has added into their phrase so who knows that's all speculation there's some other things that don't quite work so what about these forty years for the fall of Jerusalem in 586 to the first return of the Exile but after Nate is 48 years which is again round numbers represent the duration of punished from the house of Judah that's one possibility sins of the house of Judah were those which were guilty of during the last forty years of their captivity since the thirteenth year of Josiah when the Jeremiah began to prophesy or some people are going to from the 18th when the book of the law was found and some people renewed their covenant so that's an attempt to rationalize the forty years and the forty years also it seems to be tied to the forty years in the wilderness elsewhere God threatened to bring them back to Egypt which was me not Egypt literally but bondage as bad as the one in Egypt so God will now reduce them to that kind of new Egyptian bondage to the world Israel the greater transgression for a longer period than Judah that's one another commentators view it 390 years of punishment for Israel forty-four Judah cannot refer to the siege of Jerusalem that siege is referred to in the first three verses of chapter four and in a sense is restricted to the literal siege but comprehending the whole train of punishment to be inflicted for their sin therefore we read here merely of its soul pressure not of its result the sum of three hundred ninety and forty years is four hundred and thirty a period famous in the history of the Covenant people being that of their soldier and in Egypt as recorded not only in Exodus 12 but also in Galatians three at four hundred and thirty rings familiar because of that it was their total sojourn okay so it's it's symbolically significant but doesn't fit anything in past history does it fit anything in future history well we'll take a look at that not the whole for 30 years of Egypt state as a portion Israel but this is shortened by the 40 years of the wilderness sojourn to imply that the way is open for their return to life by having the Egypt state merged into that of their wilderness that by ceasing from idolatry and seeking and their sifting and sorting to righteousness and pieces that is the promise is implied but why did the Lord choose the numbers 390 and 40 they don't fit clearly the the day's represent the years of their sin that is each day corresponds to a year in Israel's and Judas history but were these years past or yet future if they refer to the past Ezekiel is showing the number of years Israel Judah had sinned before this judgment if they refer to the future Ezekiel was indicating the number of years the nation would be oppressed by Gentiles after falling to Babylon well 430 years 430 years of judgment in Ezekiel four first eight verses what are you getting so far but see they've paid seventy years in Babylon haven't they Babel is over it's gonna be seven years over 430 let's take 70 off the docket they still have 360 not accounted for we together so far in the Book of Leviticus chapter 26 four times God says and if he will not yet for all this hearken unto me then I will punish you seven times more for your sins he says that in verse 18 verse 21 verse 24 and verse 28 I wonder if you take the 3:6 someone more than 30 years ago I was reading some commentator and he speculated that gee maybe on this basis if we take the 360 and multiply it by seven we pick up a number that's about the time of the Diaspora now I thought that's pretty provocative different approach it makes more sense than everything I read so far except I don't like the word about I don't think you use the word approximate and God in the same sentence but no one has ever taken the trouble to my knowledge to apply what we learned from Sir Robert Anderson about the 360 day years if it's if we're going to take 360 times seven we get twenty five hundred and twenty years but maybe they're on a Hebrew calendar not a not our Julian calendar Kovarian calendar well it turns out the two thousand five hundred and twenty years on a 360 day basis turns out to be twenty four hundred eighty-three years nine months and twenty one days just to be precise about it the Julian years eleven months and ten point forty-six seconds longer than the mean solar year so we recognize that when we had the Gregorian reform and they actually got rid of eleven days because we had eleven we were 11 days off when they found this all out and the so that when the jury differently in the Julian counter and the Gregorian calendar are those eleven days removed and the adopted leap beer formula that they and and have every fourth year a leap year except if you have three too many every four centuries okay so that when you go through that arithmetic for the period of time we're talking about there's 621 days you have to add four leap years but you'll have three XS for every four centuries well you'll have six cycles of four centuries in that so that's 18 you're going to have too many but you've already removed the eleven so you just got seven more to deal with so you got 614 days to account for the leap years and so if you take the other numbers it turns out to get 900 7,200 days you need two thousand for 283 years at our calendar nine months and 21 days are we together for the mathematics okay you say Chuck why why do you garden well just hang on fasten your seat belt server to the nation it's 70 years right but that's a 360-day years tall so that's twenty five hundred and two hundred years there it's tits it's two days too many if you take 60 and 69 years less two days basically so take 606 BC and 69 in the 69 years that leaves you 537 B see if July 23rd 537 BC was the release of the nation by sy under the decree by a Cyrus version it turns out the 537 at that would have been if July 23rd of 537 is the day of the release remember you have to add a date because there's no Year Zero when you go from BC to AD there's no year 0 you go from minus one to plus one okay so that's 2,000 so it turns out that would bring you to a very interesting date the nation the circuitry of the nation this ends on May 14th of 1948 it comes out pretty good well that's the kid but that's only part of the story that one's kind of fun see we have the decree of Cyrus the Persian which ends the servitude of the nation that's pretty cool and if you take from that the twenty five hundred twenty years you get to May 14th of 1948 well that sounds pretty good for the serve true the nation the nation's there what about Jerusalem is Jerusalem not trodden down is it trodden down by the Gentiles now or not if Condoleezza Rice and George Bush have their way it's going to be trodden even further so where does the twenty-five hundred and twenty years come out if we take it from the desolations of Jerusalem they worked pretty well for the servitude of the nation what about the desolations of Jerusalem well luke 21:24 says they shall fall by the edge of sword and be led away captive in all nations and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of Gentiles be fulfilled that's an interesting thing especially this word until sea until then it's going to be trodden down I played around with all kinds of dates with a six-day war and a six-day war and all that but see Jerusalem didn't didn't get Giroux they got access to the old city but they still don't have control of Jerusalem well the decree of artaxerxes is what triggers the 70th week of Daniel right that's the one that will measure from if you measure from that what do you come out fat well the window for the times the Gentiles would be 4:40 march 14th the 4:45 you have to add a year because there's no year 0 they get to 2483 9 months and 21 days that brings you interestingly enough to January 5th of 2040 when the King returns and if that is correct takes seven days seven years off from that for the 70th week of Daniel so that that would say the latest date the latest date or the harpazo would be 2033 January 5th of 2033 that disappoints many of you you thought it was gonna be next year and maybe that's just the latest date if this particular construct is legitimate is it I have no idea but it was too irresistible not to show it to you with regards to the 430 days so what does this all mean to us Jesus can come back very soon and for lots of reasons I think it's sooner than most people realize because the Magog invasion is on our horizon and I think it I believe that the rapture occurs before the Magog invasion there are a lot of events that are between the harpazo and the beginning of the 70th week even if this was correct I'm not the same saying suggesting it is it might be sooner but there's a lot of events that occur after the rapture the rise of Babylon to a major world position the revealing of the Antichrist and his rise to power to where he can enforce a covenant for seven years that all takes time and those are events I believe that occur after the rapture so it's gonna be exciting times ahead of us and the longer it takes the better off it is for us because it gives us a chance to improve our report card before the judgment seat of Christ praise God for that okay for your next session see having acted out his four dramatic signs in chapters 4 and 5 Ezekiel is now going to give two sermons in chapters six and seven which is your commitment for next time let's stand for a closing word of Prayer

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Length: 60min 38sec (3638 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020