Through the Bible (Ezekiel 4-7)

ezekiel chapter 4 is where we last were in our study so let's just pick up right there if you missed our uh you know introduction to ezekiel just for a quick reminder ezekiel's in babylon with people that are in captivity and yet um it he was taken in the earlier waves you know of captivity so there's still jews in jerusalem uh even as ezekiel's penning these words in our chapters we're reading tonight so you know there's still people uh in jerusalem which eventually we know the story because we got through the book of jeremiah we know that they're all going down jerusalem is going to be wiped out but we have to almost rewind our mindset and our thinking excuse me because um you know ezekiel's there's still people in jerusalem that might hear his message or the word might get back to the people there plus the people that are in babylon they have to kind of change their attitude and their behavior as well so ezekiel's got he's preaching to jews both in babylon and maybe trying to get word to the jews in jerusalem before the the second and the third you know final waves of destruction are over so uh if you can kind of put your mind in that place i might even ask you a quiz question later to see if you uh understand what i'm saying there so we'll see a little test ezekiel chapter 4 it says in verse 1 it says thou also son of man take thee a tile and lay it before thee 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 and set battering rams against it round about 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 and thou shalt lay siege against it this shall be a sign to the house of israel so here we have the first of four object lessons that the lord's gonna have ezekiel portray or or show the people and uh without words do you remember how we ended in chapter three where where the lord says i'm basically gonna shut your mouth look at verse 26 i will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth chapter 20 chapter 3 verse 26 um i'll make your you know tongue cling to the roof of the mouth and thou shalt be dumb you won't say a word and thou shalt not be to them a reprover for their rebellious but i will speak with thee i will open thy mouth and thou shall say unto them thus saith the lord the lord god so there's a time for him to speak and there's a time for him to close his mouth where he's not going to say anything well these four object lessons we're going to see in the next two chapters chapter 4 and 5 are him just kind of being silent not saying stuff but he's going to be doing these object lessons to try to catch their attention the jews and and and this is somewhere ezekiel's probably this is written around 603 bc to put you in the time frame remember what happened in 605 which remember that would be earlier uh because the numbers are going you know backwards uh but uh so now they've only been in captive for a few years the first wave of people um so around 603 ezekiel's saying okay i'm going to do these object lessons that the lord gives to me and so if you're keeping track of these the first one you might call the brick and the pan object lesson the the brick in the pan what what is the sign of the brick in the pan well the brick or the tile that's talked about here is really just kind of a a primitive chalkboard that's the idea here when it says tile or brick by the way um in babylon they found ancient you know pre uh you know uh chalkboard uh tiles where the the babylonians wrote all kinds of information on these little tiles um i shouldn't say little they're actually about 12 by 14. they weren't eight and a half by eleven uh like your paper uh but they're about 12 by 14 inches and they would use them to write on them and that's probably what he's taking take a uh sort of a chalk talk you know if you were in football back in the days when they used to use you know chalk to sort of scratch now they use dry erase or computers or whatever but um but back then that's what they would use to ride on so ezekiel takes this brick of tile to write on and what's he supposed to draw he was supposed to portray the city of jerusalem how he did that i don't know what did he draw i have no idea but there would have been by the way for you that have traveled to israel with me a dead giveaway if you wanted to draw a quick rendition of the city of jerusalem there was a way to do it and you'll see actually mosaics in ancient buildings of you know hundreds and hundreds and hundreds even thousands of years depicting jerusalem and what you see is the roman road the cardo uh the road in the middle and then a a circular center uh where it was round um and when we go to jerusalem i show you that road that would have been the main road through jerusalem for so long and then that center circle and that was sort of a symbol of jerusalem uh by the way when we go to jerish in jordan it's a twin city of jerusalem and you and that's a better depiction because uh you know that that cardo uh and the centers uh the city square or circle uh is clearly seen those of you that have been to cherish with me or jirash as people call it um so maybe he just drew a circle and a road and uh some village they would have known that that's jerusalem and what's he gonna do he's gonna sort of play like a little kid with military soldiers did any of you guys or girls i guess play with little plastic green army men uh you know me and a buddy mike kellington we used to do horrible things we used to reenact battles and we had little green armament and firecrackers and we'd light them up and they blow up that regiment over there and we'd you know we had a little war going on in the creek by the river there uh the little sandy area but but yeah that's what basically ezekiel's playing army with with the picture of jerusalem and and then he's making you know uh uh the weapons of besieging you know the the battering ram and all that how they would they would take jerusalem that's what ezekiel's doing sitting there playing with this little thing and drawing jerusalem ezekiel what are you doing but he just sat there and and then suddenly he he gets out this now and it says this uh basically like you're picturing a uh omelette pan you know of a frying pan um probably not what ezekiel had uh the same thing you make your omelette in the morning um but probably a flat sheet of iron um and most bible scholars believe this was probably the sort of more like a pizza spatula um probably the implement they would use to reach into those stone ovens that cooked their bread they'd reach in and get the bread and scooch it out with one of these pieces of iron and iron was one of the hardest you know substances especially related to military battle that they had so iron was kind of the ultimate of strength and so what is ezekiel doing here he's making this jerusalem some some scholars believe he broke the clay you know broke jerusalem i don't know it doesn't really say that as much but he drew it and then he drew the besieging of jerusalem in the battering rams and and then he put a piece of iron between him and the city what was that about why would he put the iron there well if you would the picture is ezekiel is a picture of god himself god is orchestrating the events that jerusalem will be besieged ezekiel's sort of the example of gods you know scooching all the the battering rams in position god bringing the babylonian army and sending them outside of jerusalem just like ezekiel was doing and they says oh by the way i can't get to you because there's a huge iron wall between me and you jerusalem you know there is an iron wall between you and the lord did you know when you and i engage in sin just like the children of israel what a perfect picture here you know isaiah 59 you know verse 1 tells us that the lord's hand is not short that he cannot touch you his ear is not deaf that he cannot hear you but it's your sin that separates you from god and that's what's happening here ezekiel's picturing that with the frying pan and the brick or the tile and the piece of metal or iron all a picture of the lord not really able you said god can do anything yeah it's interesting god can but at the same time he told the people if you want to do it yourself and sin against me then you're on your own i'm not going to intervene and help you that's the iron the sin that was between god and the people and this was being pictured here in object lesson number one the sign of the brick and the frying pan or uh the tile and the the iron um now uh all that to say we move into the next uh object lesson and this is one we looked at on sunday and we'll call this one you know the sign of ezekiel lying on his sides lying on his sides it says here in verse 4 why thou also on thy left side and lay the iniquity of thy house the house of israel upon it according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity for i have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days 390 days so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of israel and when thou s accomplished them lie again on thy right side and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of judah forty days i have appointed thee each day for a year therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of jerusalem and thine arms shall be uncovered and thou shalt prophesy against it and behold i will lay bans upon thee and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to the other till thou hast ended the days of thy siege so here we have the sign of abraham abraham ezekiel lying on his sides and we looked at this on sunday um and if you recall you know they already if you'd add the 70 years that they owe and right here we see the number totaling you know uh the 430 days but but if you subtract the 70 then you get 460 uh 360 years of judgment you guys remember all this and then what do you do to that 360 years according to the book of leviticus anybody you multiply it by seven because if they if they refused to obey during this time the lord says i will multiply that curse seven times over and that's where things get interesting when you've converted it to days uh you know um then you see it brought brought you to some interesting dates in our lifetime in our prophecies that came to pass and it's really fascinating if you miss sunday i'd really recommend picking it up because it's not an easy thing to lightly go over that's why i took a whole sunday to talk about it by the way there's even more there i only scratched the surface sunday uh if for those of you that are interested you can dig deeper if you wish it's pretty amazing but um that basically this is the the second object so first objects is the the sort of the chalk talk with the frying pan the second lesson we've got here uh the lying on the sides of ezekiel the prophet uh which speaks of the the years of judgment that would be put upon the jews and it spells it out very clearly now we get this chronic next crazy one this might even be the craziest and it's not going to be pleasant to read i'll warn you but it's number three the sin of eating unclean food here we go verse nine take thou also into the wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and fitches um 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 and thy meat which thou shall eat shall be by weight twenty shackles a day from time to time thou shalt eat it thou shalt drink also water by measure the sixth part of a hen from the time from time to time thou shalt drink and thou shalt eat it as barley cakes and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of a man in their sight i warned you verse 13 and the lord said even thus shall the children of israel eat their defiled bread among the gentiles whether i shall drive them this is bad now before we talk about the horrible part ezekiel the question is did he do this while he was lying on his side that's the big question the scholars debate um and and so what has he got he's got this little stash of food that he was supposed to get to make sure that he could do all the days that he had to lie on his side so the big debate is did he did ezekiel lie down at you know 8 a.m or from nine to five and then get up and go home the next the evening and then come out the next morning and lie down or did he just lie on the side unstoppingly uh for all those days and did he pack a a bunch of food in this little bag and just eat it that way that's the big debate and we don't know the answer was it a full-time lying on the side or part-time uh was it eight hours a day or was it five three minutes a day we have no idea the main thing i think we can take away from this though is i wouldn't want to be ezekiel even if it's 10 minutes man uh forget the whole lying on your side thing that's that doesn't sound like fun but ezekiel faithfully does this now as far as the food goes he's given this measurement of food and because these are bible measurements it's hard for us to discern but i'm just going to tell you this it's a tiny tiny amount of food oh great at least he's got a bunch of food tiny amounts of food and water in fact if you kind of measure this out in these biblical you know what's a hin of water or whatever he's basically barely enough to keep him alive that's that's pretty much what's going on here barely enough to keep him alive remember this is going to be over a year that ezekiel has to do this and so he's going to be probably visibly um you know deteriorating have any of you guys watched that series alone uh where these people go out with their you know hatchet and a you know a tarp and they have to try to survive you know uh as long as they can up in the uh somewhere up in canada you know or the arctic um and the worst thing is not the cougars and the bears and all that stuff that's that's part of the deal but the the hardest part is they they pretty much all starve to death out there if you've watched the series it's hard for them to get enough food out there and they start looking like like skeletons walking around uh some of these people and they don't even realize how bad they look and they have to fly them out like if you've watched the series it's kind of crazy but that's what ezekiel probably would have started looking like he would have been getting skinnier and skinnier just laying there on the side unhealthily so um but that's part of the object lesson and we'll see why uh here in a little bit when the lord describes what's literally gonna happen to the jews so you've got the sign of this eating of unclean food now you say breth that's horrible well guess what ezekiel thought that too eating human dung with your food mixing it in now by the way there is there are some scholars out there that say well he wasn't mixing the dung in his food he was using it to cook the food with they they would use you know cow manure uh and they'd mix it with straw and they would use that as fuel to for fires um and and starting fires and what have you um that that was part of the deal so some say no he was just cooking with it but either way it's horrible but it's ezekiel he's not he's not really good with this you want me to do what lord in fact let's read verse verse 14 after he hears us about the human you know waste he says in verse 14 then said i oh lord god i love this poor ezekiel behold my soul hath not been polluted for from my youth up even till now i have not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces neither came their abominable flesh into my mouth do you remember how ezekiel was raised he was raised to be a what a priest so ezekiel would have been very kosher his whole life you know eating only the clean foods of the levitical priesthood but now the lord's saying here's what i want you to do and i want you to eat so this is where those that say no he was just using the dung for cooking i don't think that's what he was saying because ezekiel's response here if he was just talking about cooking you know well that's kind of a bummer but a well uh but this time he says lord i can't do that i've never had anything unclean and now you want me to do what but but check out what the lord says verse 15 then said he unto me uh lo i have given thee cows done for man's done and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. i don't know which ones i mean you might say it's still bad brett yeah but i grew up on a farm and there are certain you know types of manure that are worse than others if you know what i'm talking about uh a cow pie i just i always we call it poop patrol i'd have to go around with a wheelbarrow on a pitchfork and and you couldn't pick up the fresh ones you know what i mean with a pitchfork you had to kind of wait till they were at that perfect cow pie consistency and you know and then you throw it in the wheelbarrow um but horse horse manure you horse people i don't know it's not nearly as gross for some reason uh uh in fact if you've lived on a farm or a ranch uh the smell of horse manure is not even as bad as cow manure um but worse still is chicken manure why are you talking about this i don't know i just think it's interesting but but fortunately he says oh lord god no and lord says okay i'll replace the human waste with with cow manure any and you almost kind of sense a sigh of really oh yeah uh poor ezekiel again if you aren't you glad you weren't a prophet from the old testament uh these guys had to go through some crazy stuff and and the lord was using them powerfully but but not always easily kind of brutal moreover verse 16 he said unto me son of man behold i will break the staff of bread in jerusalem and they shall 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 be astonished one with another and consume a way for their iniquity so this is where the lord is describing what's going to happen you know with their the severity of their famine now again you and i having gone through you know the book of jeremiah we already saw how remember they started eating their own children uh can they resorted to cannibalism uh when they were under siege in the last in the latter sieges of nebuchadnezzar so we we've actually seen all this come to pass in the book of jeremiah ezekiel saying you guys warning warning warning this stuff's coming but um but the people didn't listen but you and i already know it came and the ezekiel was spot on here and the lord knew exactly what was going to happen but the people blew it off and and such is the case when people blow off the biblical warnings even today here's ezekiel and jeremiah warning the people you guys are going to die you're going to be slaughtered you're going to the babylonians are going to come and be and i remember the other prophets no no it's all going to be good but these guys were correct and and yet you know before we say what a bunch of losers these people didn't listen to ezekiel or jeremiah but do you and i listen to the word of god you know we we do our little sinful things and we think we're pulling it off and nobody's going to find out but the bible says be sure of this your sin will find you out numbers 32 23. interesting that people think that somehow they're going to be the exception to that rule my sin is not going to find me out but it does and it will absolutely and sadly there's there's warnings about you know everything from sexual immorality to uh greediness to warnings all throughout the bible about sin but but the sad thing is sin always catches up to you you always get nailed by sin oh we think i'm i'm doing okay all right but but that's what the people of israel said hey we're cool we've got our walls in our city and we've been living here forever it's great but eventually the word of god came to pass and they suddenly were all shocked god forbid that you and i hear the word but don't really put to practice what the word is actually saying or or even you know you and i we can we can play this game where because we've taken the notes as we go through the bible that somehow we're keeping the word because we took the notes but actually we have to ask ourselves am i literally doing what the word tells me to do and am i repenting of sin um you might even put this next to this chapter if you want to put a line next to the chapter um sinfulness leads to leanness that's exactly what's happening here sinfulness leads to leanness leanness they were starving they were hungry and here's ezekiel eating these little tiny portions of a little hint of water and a little tiny chunk of meat and just a tiny bit of food and he's starving as he's laying on his side and he's doing all this stuff and the people are like what are you doing you get get a stake ezekiel you're starving here buddy and he's like this is what's going to happen to you you're going to be starving and you're going to be thirsty and the people blew it off and they just kept their sinful ways sinfulness leads to leanness leanness of soul you know it's interesting because we we think that certain things will fill us up but man leanness is what it's all about uh when you're a sinful person and continuing in sin unrepentant so we have chapter four those first three now before we go into the fourth of the uh object lessons there's there's um there's kind of a representation here uh of the four things that he of the four signs that he's given um and that is the number one the fact of the siege is represented the fact of the siege is represented by the the um the sign of the brick and the frying pan that it's it's factual it's going to happen the brick and the frying pan number two the lying on the side speaks of the length of the punishment the length of the punishment so the first story you say why is the redundant story over and over again the first story speaks of the the uh the fact of the siege the second with the length of the punishment the third one the food one speaks of the severity of what's going to happen the severity of what's gonna happen but the fourth one in chapter five is going to speak of the results of the the siege the results of the babylonians coming and that's where we come to this fourth it's the sign of the shaved head here we go verse 1 it says and now son of man take thee a sharp knife and take the a barber's razor and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard when then take thee the balances to weigh the scale and divide the hair and thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are fulfilled and thou shalt take a third part and smite about it with a knife and in the third the third part uh the last of the three parts thou shalt scatter it in the wind and i will draw out a sword after them thou shalt take thereof a few in number and bind them in thy skirts then take of them again and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire for thereof shall a fire come forth into the house of israel okay now the the people are probably thinking oh he's just totally lost it now now this this is something that our culture you're like oh he shaved his head cool whatever shaved his beard time about time uh mr hairy ezekiel needed a shave anyway well here's the thing in those days remember what it meant to shave your beard off um there's still places in the world like in afghanistan you know when when uh uh when the united states went in there 20 years ago can you believe that 20 years ago we started our thing in in afghanistan um all the freed young men were shaving their beards off because it was illegal before we went in there now uh who knows what's gonna happen if we leave and when we leave but uh you know the point is even to the muslim in a lot of places in the world the beard is a as a a sign of honor in bible times remember the story of david who said um that king who his dad died he sent him a get you know a condolence card basically sent a bunch of his servants from jerusalem naaman and he sent him over there and uh and he thought you got you just spying us out so they cut off their robes where their rear ends stick out and then they shaved half their beard off and sent them back and said you guys were just sending spies even though david was just a nice kind gesture remember that story well the guys came back and they were totally embarrassed so they stayed in jericho and dave was like hey where's those guys that we sent to naaman to give them the you know condolences and stuff they said well they're they're not coming back well why not because they're so ashamed not because their robe was cut out like you know in a hospital garment um that was a shameful thing but that was no big deal compared to their beards and david said okay okay i'll tell you what let them stay in jericho until their beards grow back and then they can come back to jerusalem what's the big deal about the beard it was everything to them it was their it was a sign of wisdom it was a sign of maturity and honor and if you shaved off the beard it was a total in insult so so for you got to understand that because for ezekiel to shave his head and to shave his beard off that is the ultimate of of gesture of several things mourning is one of those things but also total humiliation that's what that's what this was a symbol of mourning and total humiliation um that's why he shaves off his hair now hair being a sense of your pride and your honor and all this stuff what happened to the hair well three things so if you could almost picture the hair of clumps meaning something to the jews what it's supposed to mean is you know this is the thing you you actually covet your pride and you know your maturity and your so-called wisdom and all that but let's see what happens to your hair or your pride or your wisdom and so he divides it with scale he puts his hair on a scale now you say how do you weigh hair well if you're a guy who hasn't shaved for a long time your hair starts to weigh stuff like it's got some mass to it and so he weighs it out with a little scale and these clumps of air so a third let's divide this up the first part of the third he burns with fire the second part he cuts up with a knife and um the third part he scatters in the wind and then ran around in the wind trying to slice it with a sword after it was blowing in the wind yeah he's totally lost it brad that's just uh are you sure this is the lord told him to do this or was this just him you know needing a little medication or something well actually this is exactly what the lord wants and he's going to explain to us what each one of these third thirds mean let's take a look so verse 5 it says thus saith the lord god this is jerusalem i have said it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her and she has changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her for they have refused my judgments and my statutes they have not walked in them therefore thus saith the lord god because you multiplied more than the nations that are round about you and have not walked in my statutes neither kept my judgments neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are around you therefore thus saith the lord the lord god behold i even i am against thee and will execute judgments in the midst of the in the sight of the nations and i will do in thee that which i have not done and whereunto i will not do any more like because of all the abominations therefore the father shall eat the sons in the midst of thee and the sons shall eat their fathers and i will execute judgments in thee and the whole remnant of thee will like scatter into the winds wherefore as i live saith the lord god surely because thou has defiled my sanctuary with thy all thy detestable things and with all thine abominations therefore will i also diminish thee neither shall mind i spare neither will i have any pity man this is where the lord is just saying you're going to be judged because you as jews you had every opportunity to follow my i gave you my word the word of god given by you know moses the pentateuch the first five books and his statutes commandments and judgments the levitical law the mosaic law all was given to the jews but not only did they not keep the law of the lord but they got worse than the canaanite nations that were around them um and if you study the canaanites they were evil and wicked and doing all sorts of abomination of uh you know abominations in the side of the lord it makes me concerned because here's god's people doing worse than the world i hope that the church of jesus christ we learn a lesson from old testament jews because i'm not sure we're that far off from where these guys were i see where you know in somehow in certain forms of christianity so-called today where we don't call sin sin anymore and and we behave in a way where even the world goes whoa man can't believe those guys you know we have all these you know and i have to be careful here because um you know i don't want to go along with the world's narrative on this but you know we have these celebrity pastors who have moral failures and the world just loves that oh wow another pastor fallen you know because of you know sexual sin or whatever and and and even the world this is where we have to be kind of careful even the world is a little shocked at what happened you know there at liberty university or or ravi zacharias or you know the hillsong pastor from new york i forget his name carl something but just time after time and person after person the world's going whoa those christians are worse than we are and you know i'm not saying that you know you and i are better than the world or anything like that but but we as bible-believing christians we are called to be holy be ye holy as i the lord i'm holy blessed jesus said are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled instead of hungering and thirsting after righteousness the church if we're not careful we can start hungering and thirsting after sinfulness and then what we do is we dismiss it as hey i'm saved by grace remember when paul said yeah we're saved by grace but should we continue in sin and let grace abound what do you say god forbid like we don't just use the grace of god as a place to wipe our feet as we go in and say hey i'm here to worship you lord even though i'm just totally blowing off your word altogether now the good news is and i say that literally the gospel the good news is that you and i are so close to being able to be reconciled back to god it's one sincere repentant prayer away to say lord i have sinned against you and i have broken your word and i have gone against what your bible tells me to do but the problem is nobody's teaching repentance and confession anymore um we're all about making excuses hey i'm i'm saved by grace i'm free in christ liberty and christ and so we we just go on in our sin and we don't read the bible as much anymore so we don't even know what sin is anymore and we go around calling things that the bible not only calls us in but stuff that the bible even calls an abomination unto the lord and we go and say we celebrate that and we accept it um really it makes me wonder as a church can we sort of look at these jews here and go oh man these losers no wonder they got we're eating each other no wonder they were starving no wonder their city got crushed they were a bunch of sinners but we need to maybe carefully and prayerfully say lord help your church not to fall into the same category that's by the way while this story is here the story is recorded in the book of ezekiel i remember what was it 15 years ago last time i went through ezekiel it's been a while about time i got back here but i remember when we were at the school and i was teaching ezekiel and this one guy came up to me on a sunday morning he said brett uh you'll see me in about four or five months i said why i'm sick of all this stuff and you know the doom and gloom of the old testament that's what he said he said you know what uh let's get to when you get to the book of daniel i'll join back up with you guys but this this old testament stuff but here's the thing and this was a lot long time ago but you know what was interesting i happened to later find out that guy he was all tangled up in all kinds of sinful stuff like the very thing that this this section of scripture would have done really well for him to listen and take heed to the word of god he was just saying i don't want to hear it i don't i don't think it was that he was just like i don't hear the doom and gloom of the old testament he just didn't want to be convicted of his sin and later on he showed up somewhere midstream in daniel a very broken and very troubled man you know i hope that none of us just dismiss this and say uh he's a doom and gloom ezekiel what a nut case chopping his hair off and throwing in the wind and running after it with an eye like this is this what a weirdo but do you understand this imagery is crazy and it's meant to be weird it's almost supposed to be a little twilight zoney because you know what you and i when we sin and we just engage in sinful attitudes and actions man sin leads you to that leanness of soul and troubledness in our minds and our hearts and this is a good even brutal but a good reminder for you and me to to maybe make sure that we're not just embracing things that are sinful and like these guys the indictment here is you're worse than the nations around you like that's a horrible thing that the jews are going to have to hear but they're not going to listen to it but they're worse than the canaanites they're worse than the amalekites they're worse than the philistines that's what the lord's saying and he's not over exaggerating so what do we do we need to check our attitudes i think we should you know i mean there's a long list of stuff we could talk about while the world is talking about transgenderism and all this stuff should the church should we go back to just sexual immorality uh it's almost like with all the levels of sexual sin that has got us all the way down this far-reaching road it's almost like a couple living together before they're married that's not even the bad list anymore even though the bible says that's called sin the lord said that's going to hurt you it's going to mess you up but people say yeah whatever or drunkenness people you know today in the church i remember when i was a kid alcohol was the forbidden beverage when i was a kid how many of us grew up with that like no christian drinks alcohol some of you guys you guys kind of now the bible doesn't say christians can't drink alcohol i agree uh and some of you it's it's fine you know if you have wine with your dinner and stuff like that that's great but what i've seen in the church is this fine line somewhere between you know the liberty that you have to drink alcohol of some kind wine with your dinners that's great but i see a lot of people not really discerning that line of where's too much because the bible speaks of drunkenness and and it's one of the sins listed there uh you know in galatians and in ephesians that talks about if you continually practice such sin like drunkenness and adultery and stuff like that so in the same category you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven but but like these people could it be that we start to kind of tune that out say well it's just a little drink also i get a little tipsy at night and you know it just helps me sleep and gets me more comfortable and we can make our our rationalization of why it's okay but if it's drunkenness well what is drunkenness well there's an interesting question right there we know what the state of oregon considers drunkenness when you're driving a vehicle but from what i'm gathering from a lot of my christians brothers and sisters is people are crossing that line at home all the time oh i'm not driving so it's not legal uh problems that i have i i just stay home and i drink a little bit so i can be careful christians i i know this sounds legalistic and oh brett you're a dinosaur come on but that's what they probably said to ezekiel so i'm in good company i'm not gonna shave my head though anytime soon be careful though let's not be like the jews of this i think that we can't criticize the jews here because we have that same propensity and the lord says man you're worse than the world you should be better you should be a more upstanding but they weren't so then he ex now is going to explain in very detail the the three parts of the hair and he's going to explain what they are verse 12. it says a third part of thee shall die with the pestilence and with famine uh they shall they be consumed in the midst of thee so so that's the first part remember the one that he just cut his hair off and weighed a third out and just threw in the fire that's the first the first third are people are going to die of pestilence or disease and with famine the second part there it says uh it says the the next third part shall fall by the sword round about the remember that he the second party cut with a knife now the word knife there in verse two uh his better translated sword just just a heads up he wasn't out there with a little you know pen knife or something he had a full-on sword and that's the the hebrew word is sword and i don't know why the king james chose to say knife um but some of your newer translations put sword there so he cuts his hair off with a sword um that third is gonna fall by the sword in battle uh and uh or or just being slaughtered on the hillsides remember how jeremiah talked about how there'd be carcasses laying over the hills of jerusalem from the sword this is the same thing ezekiel foretold so the first part famine and disease the second part uh is falling by the sword and then the third and final third he says in verse 12 and i will scatter the third part into all the winds and i will draw out a sword after them those are the people that ran for their lives but eventually babylon caught up with them do you remember um even zedekiah the king tried to do that uh the the the king was nebuchadnezzar was just crashing through the doors zedekiah snuck out and he ran for a little while with his posse but the babylonians caught up to him and uh took him into captivity but notice here there was another little thing that says here in verse 3 thou shall also take there have a few in number and bind them in my skirts what's that uh the word skirts there do you see what your margin reads bind them in your what wings that's an interesting thing what's this tiny it's like the lord says one third one third and one third oh there's gonna be a little pinch of hair that we're gonna pull off and ezekiel wants you to tuck them in your wing or in your skirts uh what's that for well i have a theory uh i wouldn't die on this battlefield but i think it's the lord's saying i'm gonna save a tiny remnant of you and i'm gonna put you in the shadow of my what wings it's a great picture that's what the lord does and he he does he's not gonna completely destroy the jews altogether but they've asked for massive dust uh you know destruction and uh and the lord's just gonna take a little pinch of them and save them and that's probably what that's referring to there in verse three well verse 13 thus shall my anger be 13 thus shall my 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 moreover i will make the waste and a reproach among the nations that are round about the in the sight of all that pass by so it shall be a reproach and a taunt an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee when i shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes i the lord have spoken it oh i'm so glad people say that we don't serve the lord of the old testament um actually you do do you understand that i hope you understand the same wrath and fury god that's here is the same god you and i believe in now the good news is he also is gracious and merciful uh and his mercy endures forever but it's kind of an on or off switch it's not like uh you know gradually it gets wrath and gradually gets gracious it's just whether or not you're saved and it just depends on who you are you know uh jesus talked about he'll either be a stone of uh of salvation or a stone of crushing jesus talked about that and it just depends on your position in christ if you're still a sinner and still in your sins you're under you're going to be under the stone of crushing read this chapter in ezekiel but if you're saved by the grace of god he becomes a solid rock that you can put your feet upon and it's just on or off you're either saved or you're not saved so this god still exists and this this is the same god he's the same yesterday today and forever so we need to continue to remind people fury is still part of his deal when we we see we see the word here you know it's kind of brutal he says verse 13 mine anger shall be accomplished and my c i will cause my fury to rest upon them is that going to happen again yes the tribulation period that's coming is a time where god's fury will be poured out upon a christ-rejecting sinful world the question is are you going to be there i don't believe so if you're a christian for you are not appointed unto wrath first thessalonians chapter 5 tells us but to obtain salvation through jesus christ but don't make the mistake of saying i'm glad that he's not the god of the old testament he's the same so when you read this fury part it's meant to stir us up a little bit and go whoo don't want to be on the wrong side of that um and so we see that um he says and in fury verse 15 in furious rebukes i the lord have spoken at verse 16 when i shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine which shall be for their destruction and which i send to destroy you and i will increase the famine upon you and i will break your staff of bread so will i send upon you famine and evil beasts and they shall bereave thee and pestilence and behold shall pass through thee and i will bring the sword upon thee i the lord have spoken it wow scary stuff so these little object lessons that ezekiel did uh the four of them uh they all had purpose all had meaning the results of the siege is the fourth one you know the sign of the shaved head and the hair and all that stuff now chapter six is where we have uh the beginning of two sermons chapter six is one sermon chapter seven is the other sermon i'd like to show you a little bit uh that's kind of fun at the beginning of the sermon verse 1 of chapter 6 and the word of the lord came to me and then look at the last verse of chapter 6 and they shall know that i am the lord that's what is that's what the sermon is going to do i'm going to speak the word of the lord and they're going to know that jehovah is god look at the beginning of the sermon in chapter 7 verse 1 moreover the word of the lord came unto me and then the last verse of chapter 7 the last phrase and they shall know that i am the lord this is the point of these two sermons uh that the people say wow jehovah he is the lord he is god um that's the point let's read these sermons uh that that ezekiel has uh now he gets to speak by the way no more eating poo that's great he gets to he gets to talk again praise the lord he says in verse 1 and the word of the lord came to me saying son of man set thy face toward the mountains of israel and prophesy against them anybody want to take a stab a guess at why would ezekiel turn to the mountains and and preach against them anybody [Music] what was going on in the high places paganism that's where they did all their paganism they didn't do it as much on the temple mount they did but they really practiced their paganism up in the mountains in the high places and in the groves so he says prophesy up in those mountains against them and say verse 3 you mountains of israel hear the word of the lord god thus saith the lord god to the mountains and to the hills to the rivers and to the valleys behold i even i will bring a sword upon you and i will destroy your high places and your altars shall be desolate and your images shall be broken and i will cast down your slain men before your idols and i will lay the dead carcasses of the children of israel before their idols and i will scatter your bones round about your altars in all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste and the high places shall be desolate that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate and your idols may be broken and cease and your images may be cut down and your works may be abolished and the slain shall fall in the midst of you and you shall know that i am the lord yet will i leave a remnant that you may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations when you shall be scattered through the countries and they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whether they shall be carried captives because i am broken with their heart which hath departed from me and with their eyes which go a whoring after their idols and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations and they shall know that i am the lord and that i have not said in vain what i would do this evil to them thus saith the lord god smite with the hand and stamp with thy foot and say alas for all the evil abominations of the house of israel for they shall fall by the sword by famine and by the pestilence he that is far off shall die of the pestilence and he that is near shall fall by the sword and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine thus will i accomplish my fury upon them then shall ye know that i am the lord which their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars upon every high hill in all the tops of the mountains and under every green tree under every thick oak the place where they did offer sweet savor to all their idols so will i stretch out my hand upon them and make the land desolate yay more desolate than the wilderness toward dibla and on all their habitations and they shall know that i am the lord interesting you know so much here but i'm not going to spend a ton of time on this because this is virtually what jeremiah taught us uh and it's word for word it's the lord speaking through ezekiel to a whole other group of people to make sure god's word gets across to the people so these are reoccurring themes one theme though at the end of this you know he says i will make this land desolate at this time before the babylonian invasion israel was fruitful it was land still flowing with milk and honey and it was beautiful and lush but the lord did make israel desolate by the time you know 100 years ago when mark twain was there he couldn't find a tree or a plant anywhere what made israel desolate well there's a couple things that happened but the biggest thing might shock you um and this is one of the fulfillments of bible prophecy how did the lord make israel desolate well as it turns out during the ottoman turks period of ruling the region as known as palestine at that time the ottomans did something that was kind of strange they taxed people based on how many trees they had on their property um and so the jews and and the people in that land cut down all the trees like like literally it was a long it was you know um it was like 50 years of this happening where people said i'm not getting taxed these exorbitant taxes based on how many fruit trees or any trees i have so they cut them down and used them as firewood but in so doing uh really changed the whole climate of the land and it became very desert very barren soil erosion started to take over there's whole regions of that area that were once fruitful and beautiful that became a desert now it's only in recent days and i say recent the last 100 years that the jews have brought the land back to life which is also fulfilling bible prophecy it's really kind of an amazing thing but this is one of those things the ezekiel touches on here but before we leave sermon number one there's one phrase i want to point out that i think is is well it's sort of heartbreaking you kind of you see the lord full of wrath and fury and this is the scary part of god that i think you kind of go man i'm glad i'm not on the side of that but even in his fury did you see just his heart brokenness for his people it's right there in verse nine he says um in verse nine he says because i am broken with their heart who's broken it seems that the lord's heart is broken because the heart of the jews were and the word is whoring a whoring prostituting themselves to other gods and what have you and idols um and thus the lord it was it broke it really broke his heart that's kind of a sad part of this whole thing um but then there's one final phrase that i want to show you that is such a key and such a truth um the last part of verse 9 he says and they the jews sinful jews they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations i've marked that in my bible because that's something that people do to this very day when people sin they might make excuses for their sin they might say it's not really sin but they end up loathing themselves for it and they can't always tell you why but they do there's a self-loathing now instead of people when they're self-loathing what is the world's remedy to self-loathing it's actually ridiculous it's self-loving i get so tired of seeing instagram entries of people saying i'm just learning to love myself stop it that is not the answer don't love yourself and don't be you know like this is such a worldly notion um building your love of yourself no no no no um the loath thing is true when we sin we loathe ourselves but instead of saying i'm not going to loathe myself anymore i'm going to love myself and i'm going to love my behavior and i'm going to love what i'm doing it's sort of you get being as rebellious as you possibly can be against god by saying i'm just going to love my loathsome self you're rebelling against god in that don't love yourself repent when you find yourself loathing yourself say i repent of the sins that i've done because they stink and they are loathsome but the answer is not self-esteem building up your self-esteem no the answer is acknowledge that you're a loathsome person just say it's true i'm i'm loathsome brad i don't know if that's healthy well tell paul the apostle that romans chapter 7 do you hear it remember this is that chapter romans 7 where paul says i don't do the things i do want to do and i do the things i don't want to do and the things i wish to do i do not remember that whole thing he said over and over again but here's how he concludes this it's romans 7 24 he says oh wretched man that i am do you get a sense that he's loathing himself right here he says oh wretched man that i am who shall deliver me from this body of death and then he answers his question i thank god through jesus christ our lord how did paul deal with the self-loathsomeness of his own sinfulness he didn't say you know i'm just going to love myself even though i'm loved i'm going to love myself he didn't do that he said i loathe myself and i am loathsome thanks be to god who sent his son jesus why the answer because jesus came and died for those sins that are so loathsome so that the lord says i will remove your sins and i will cleanse you from all your iniquities you'll no longer be in the stench of sin i will wash you and cleanse you and save you so what people are doing and learning to love themselves even though they're loathsome they're just pouring perfume on the cow pie not to get away too far from our analogy tonight the stench of sin you can sprinkle perfume on it if you want to but it's still there and it's still full of disease and grossness or you can say i want my sins not just sprinkled perfume on the cow pie i want my sins removed and the lord says i will take your sins and i will put them as far as the east is from the west don't you want the cow pie as far away from you as possible that's what the lord says he'll do and this whole self-esteem you know i'm building my self-esteem no that's just dumb that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard it's not about your self-esteem it's the bible says it's about esteeming others better than yourself but also the more you're looking into building up your self-esteem you're actually you could be building up something that doesn't really need to be built up it might even need to be torn down i know this goes contrary to what a lot of the world says but you and me building ourselves up and loving ourselves and all this stuff that's just dumb the key is to repent of your sins and love god with all your heart mind soul and strength and then love others and then you're good to go i know that might sound overly simplified but you know count me guilty of saying let god be true and every man a liar the world is telling you what you need to do love yourself and even christians and churches are saying that nowadays be careful christians read your bibles it's not about loving yourself i just i can't say that strong enough the sad thing is ezekiel's people they loathed themselves because they knew they were sinners but they didn't do the right thing they didn't repent of their sin break off their sins and turn to the lord that's the answer and and then where does a healthy perspective come from not from self-esteem or loving yourself it comes from just knowing the love of god knowing your position in christ when you accept jesus and you for your sins are forgiven you know that you're in good standing with god which is the only one that matters it doesn't matter what herkimer thinks of you or or the people at work or whatever what matters is what god thinks of you not what you think of yourself what god thinks of you and if you're a believer and you've confessed your sins and repented to god guess what the lord says my thoughts towards you are precious thoughts thoughts of peace and not of evil and with you i have a future and a hope or an expected end in store for you and when you have your identity in christ because of what he's done for you i'll show you a healthy balanced person but if you're trying to love yourself you may not love what you find the more you dig deeper into yourself you might just find a few more cow pies in there and it's not lovable it's just not get rid of the cow pie love the lord with all your heart follow christ be forgiven well all that to say ezekiel gives this word that i find kind of fascinating that today we we wonder why we loathe ourselves the answer is the same reason here they shall loathe themselves for the evils that they have committed in all their abominations sad but people don't know how to deal with that these days well there's one more sermon uh let's read this quickly so sermon number two verse 1 moreover the word of the lord came to me saying also thou son of man thus saith the lord god and to the land of israel and end the end has come upon the four corners of the land now is the end come upon thee and i will send mine anger upon thee and will judge thee according to thy ways and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations um i will judge thee according to thy ways they were bringing this upon themselves now this is the same thing that happens to the non-believer during the great white throne judgment the lord will judge you according to your ways bad bad thing but if you're a christian if you accept christ your sins will be forgiven and forgotten and he will not judge you according to your bad things he will judge only the good things that you've done that sounds like a deal to me well verse 4 mine i shall not spare thee neither will i have pity but i will recompense thy ways upon thee and thine abomination shall be in the midst of thee and you shall know that i am the lord thus saith the lord god and evil and only evil behold his come an end has come the end is come and it watcheth for thee behold it has come the morning has come unto thee thou o thou that dwelleth in the land the time has come the day of trouble is near and not the sounding again of the mountains now will i shortly pour out my fury upon thee and accomplish my anger upon thee and i will judge thee according to thy ways and will recompense thee for all thine abominations and mine i shall not spare neither will i have pity i will recompense thee according to thy ways and thy abominations that are in the midst of thee and you shall know that i am the lord that smiteth would you mark that because this is a flag that you need to put in the old testament another name of god um this you know we have various names and suddenly the bible says i am jehovah and then he or the lord you know you see the word lord there with the little capital letters that means it's the word jehovah so at the end of verse 9 i am the lord that's jehovah that's smiteth and the hebrew word there is macca or depending on how you want to pronounce it but jehovah macha what is that it's the lord that spites well brett i don't want to remember that one that's a scary one but he is he's the lord that's why does anybody know what jehovah jireh means provider does anybody know what jehovah nisi means banner does anybody know what jehovah rapha means yes the healer does anybody know what jehovah syd canoe means a righteousness does anyone know what jehovah maca means you do now but you didn't a lot of you because nobody likes that one that's not the one you put on your mirror or you know the lord of the smites it's like hmm that's not a very fun one brett the lord that's my to see i like the gila the provider but the smiler ooh but but here's the thing remember i was saying the lord is the same yesterday today this is the same god that smites but praise be to the lord i mean we could talk about this all night but the the the truth is he still smites well bret that makes me nervous but if you're a christian who was smitten for you jesus christ he's still the same god just the difference is these people in this story were unrepentant they did not repent from their sins but as it turns out the lord says if you repent i'll bless you just like he says to you and me isaiah 53 verse 4 and 6 says this surely he hath borne our griefs he has carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of god and afflicted he was wounded for our transgression bruised for our iniquities this is isaiah the prophet saying the lord who smites jehovah macha is the same god that smote smitten if you would his son in our place god has not changed he's just said if you repent of your sins i will become the smitten one in your place like this is just powerful stuff so when i read ezekiel i rejoice that i'm not one of these jews and an unrepentant mode but i'm it makes me realize lord make sure if there's anything unclean in me that i've got to repent of lord i just want to be totally clear with you and and and man thank you for taking that bruising and that beating for me because i deserve what these guys got but the lord's mercy is great and it endures forever well that's a great word jehovah makkah and i i actually have a warm feeling when i think of the lord who smites because i realize he was smitten for me great stuff well let's finish up this little chapter seven this second sermon verse 10 behold the day behold it come the morning has gone forth the rod of blossom pride is blooded violence has risen up into the rod of wickedness none of them shall remain nor of their multitude nor of any of theirs neither shall there be wailing for them the time has come the day dropped near let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof for the seller shall not return to that which is sold although they were yet alive for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof which shall not return neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life so you know there's business going on in jerusalem buying and selling houses but yeah whatever it's not going to mean anything ezekiel says you can buy you can sell a house but in a few weeks maybe a few months none of it's going to matter the iniquity of their life verse 14 they have blown the trumpet even to make already but none goeth to battle for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof the sword is without and pestilence and the famine within he that is in the field shall die with the sword he that is in the city famine and pestilence shall devour him but they that escape of them shall escape and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys all of them mourning everyone for his iniquity all hands shall be feeble all knees shall be weak as water they shall also gird themselves with sackcloth and horror and shall cover them shall cover them and shame shall be upon all their faces and baldness upon their heads they shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be removed their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of wrath of the lord they shall not satisfy their souls neither fill their bowls because it is a stumbling block of their iniquity verse 19 might be a verse that we as americans should highlight the middle of verse 19 their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the lord did you see the headlines today a lot of the newspapers and you know reports and then the headline was this um bernie madoff burns in hell and the reason why is he died today bernie madoff who was bernie madoff was a guy made off with a lot of money back when was that in like the 90s right um and he ripped off they they say more than 37 000 individual people he ripped them off and you know he was busted and he was sentenced to 150 years in prison back in you know 25 years ago or whatever that was and um and today you know they're all saying he's burning in hell because he ripped off so many people but the guy was loaded like he had hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars and um but you know he's kind of the classic example was his money sure didn't save him and he was in prison and he was very sickly in the last several years but he's 82 and he dies in prison today and so everybody says he's burning in hell but guess what i want to remind you that we don't know that he's burning it well sure he ripped off all those people yeah but did you know that's not really what gets you in hell if you told a little lie when you were four years old that gets you in hell too the question i would raise is not did he rip off the 37 000 people it's more so did he ever repent of his sins and confess his sins to god because i wonder i don't know i have no idea um he's a jewish guy and by the way ripped off a lot of jews something like 15 000 of the people he ripped off were jews more than 15 000 lawsuits were filed against him when all this went down like that's that's a lot of lawsuits but but the question is did bernie madoff ever go to his knees and say lord i'm a sinner forgive me and i believe in jesus that died on the cross and rose from the grave if he ever did that we don't know what happened to him in prison but if he ever did he's not burning in hell so the papers don't know he could be in hell it could be heaven but we don't know but the one thing i want to remind us as americans is your money will not help you in those days um i always kind of chuckle when people you know think that their money is going to get them through the tribulation brett i'm a post-tribber and you guys should be readying yourself to live through the tribulation so i'm getting gold and i've got a bunker and some guns and cheerios and i always kind of think man i just don't know how the math and that works out because you can have all those gold bars but if things get as bad as the bible says it's going to be those gold bars aren't going to necessarily help you now now i understand that bad times can come before the tribulation period and you might need those gold bars but it's a it's funny you know putting your trust in money uh never really worked out for people that well and uh you know and i'm not saying to be irresponsible to not be ready for if there's food problems or you need water or whatever sure there's a level of you know prep being preppers but not crazy preppers um and that's the thing i see a lot of christians sort of take this prepper thing and there's a point where we have to kind of say it's more about preparing our hearts and our minds to follow christ in those times of trouble because you're gold and silver just like these people they thought their golden silver was good it was just trash thrown out in the street when this all went down that's the sad truth of it all well let's finish off verse 20. as for the beauty of his ornament he said in he said it in majesty but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein therefore have i set it far from them and i will give it unto the into the hands of the strangers for for prey and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil and they shall pollute it my face will i turn also from them and they shall pollute my secret place that's the holy of holies by the way for the robbers shall enter into it and defile it make a chain for the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence sounds like portland um just have you even followed the last couple nights in portland another uh massively horrible violent stuff going on in portland but nobody cares um verse 24 wherefore i will bring the worst of the heathen and they shall possess their houses i will also make the pomp of the strong to cease and their holy places shall be defiled this um characterizes israel from the period um of the glory of solomon all the way to where now like um until may 14th 1948 really this land would be cursed and this is all kind of picturing that curse 25 destruction cometh and they shall seek peace and there shall be none mischief shall come upon mischief rumors shall be upon rumor then shall they seek a vision of the prophet but the law perish from the priest and counsel from the ancients finally they'll get to a point where they'll say okay what was that the prophets were saying but the lord's saying it's too late now do you know that it's going to be too late there's a time where you can't just play games with god you've got to realize that there's a time where judgment's coming and you need to take advantage of the days that we live in verse 25 destruction cometh and they shall seek peace they should and there shall be none mischief shall come upon mischief and rumor shall be upon rumor oh we already read this part uh perishing from the ancients verse 27 the king shall mourn and the prince shall be clothed with desolation and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled i will do unto them after their way what's over manage those that will he also reap that's what he's saying i will do unto them after their way and according to their deserts will i judge them and they shall know that i am the lord this whole thing about the lord saying i'm going to wipe these people out and i'm going to smite them the hand that smites i'm just so thankful that he was spitting for us i i finished with a little story a little girl named monica in africa uganda years ago the story is told where she was coming home and she fell in a pit and broke her arm and she couldn't climb out of this pit it was a pit i think meant for trapping um but her um favorite little nanny who was watching her was looking for and found her and she jumped down into the pit to help her then her name was nadja and uh and she and suddenly this deadly poisonous snake jumped out of the dirt and bit the nanny nadja and then turned and bit the little girl and eventually they're they're just kind of breathing in pain and dying from the venom you know they pulled out the little girl and and monica and najin took her to the took them to the closest little medical center there in uganda where there was a missionary treating well the the nanny died because the venom overtook her and killed her but the nurse uh just feeling a missionary by the way she was a missionary nurse feeling sadness for this little girl monica she said you know this is so sad but here's what happened the reason why you're living is because the snake spent all of its venom in its first bite and the second bite that hit you the snake didn't have hardly any venom left and that's why you're okay and she said did you know that someone named jesus took the venom for you just like your nurse made and just had a moment of explaining the gospel to this little girl the little girl became a christian that day because she said man if somebody took my penalty i uh owe everything to that that one that's what the lord's done with us he took the venom for you um and because of that the bite of sin for us we don't have to live with this kind of judgment and wrath and horror because of the the work that jesus did on the cross what a glorious thing ezekiel makes me glad that i am not stuck and totally rebellious and saying lord i don't want to go with your way i want to this ezekiel just makes me want to do it jesus said hunger and thirst after righteousness that's the way to go amen lord we thank you so much for this scripture tonight and i pray that you'd apply it lord not just in one ear and out the other but i pray that we'd meditate on your word as we just remember what you've spoken lord and now bless these your people as we go our way tonight may your word just be sitting in our hearts and uh planted like seed that might bring forth good fruit and this we pray and ask in jesus name amen

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 17,745

Rating: 4.8933334 out of 5

Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship

Id: rOpbpSUGAd8

Length: 75min 49sec (4549 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021