["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our services tonight here at Faith Board Baptist Church.
It's a joy to see you all here on this Wednesday night.
Let's all take our seats, please, as you find a songbook close by.
And we'll turn to hymn number 82 tonight.
We'll begin hymn number 82, When He Cometh.
Hymn number 82, it begins, When He Cometh, to make up His jewels.
Hymn number 82 on this first verse all together now.
["In the Hall of the Mountain King"]
It's down at the cross where my Savior died.
Hymn number two singing it nice and loud on this first verse together. Hymn number two.
Down at the cross where my Savior died
Down where from cleansing from sin I cried
There to my heart was the blood of life
Glory to His name
There to my heart was the blood of life
Glory to His name
I am so wondrously saved from sin
Jesus so sweetly abides within
There at the cross where He took me in
Glory to His name
There to my heart was the blood of life
Glory to His name
O precious mountain that saves from sin
I am so glad I have entered in
There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean
Glory to His name
There to my heart was the blood of life
Glory to His name
Come to this mountain so rich and sweet
Cast thy poor soul at the Savior's feet
Climb deep today and be made complete
Glory to His name
There to my heart was the blood of life
Glory to His name
Sunday nights at 6, Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
And this week will be in Ezekiel chapter 4. We've got the soul winning times listed there below.
And then don't forget that tomorrow's 5 p.m. soul winning time is cancelled.
So there's no soul winning tomorrow at 5 p.m.
But there is an opportunity to ride down to Tucson if you want to go down to the midweek service down in Tucson.
That shuttle leaves at 3.30 p.m. tomorrow. So the church van is going to be heading down there.
If you want to go just show up at 3.30 and you can go do soul winning. They'll buy you dinner
and have church down there tomorrow night. But no soul winning at 5.
And then across the page congratulations to the Pendleton family on the birth of baby Hannah.
Born on August 20th. 9 pounds 13 ounces. Great picture there.
And so congratulations to them. Music emphasis night is Thursday September 2nd.
So that's next Thursday. And then on the back also
for the Tucson shuttle there is going to be a sign up I believe right. Did you do you have a sign up sheet
just to make sure there's room for everybody. So if you are planning on riding the Tucson shuttle sign up
if you remember. And then on the back the ladies retreat is going on already right
now. And so you know some guys are probably really suffering
you know with the meals not making themselves and the house
not cleaning itself. Now I've kind of cheated the system because I've got my mom here visiting.
So because I you know otherwise what would I do for the week. You know what I mean.
It'd be a lot of PB&J's. So I had to bring my mom in. I had to bring in some
reinforcements. So thank you mom for bailing me out.
And then we've got so that's going on down there. Tons of ladies are down there having
a great time with that. And then below that is just a list of other things that are coming
up. So that's really about it for announcements. Let's go and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
So going back to Monday anything from Monday. OK. All right.
Anything else. OK. Anything else from Monday. What about Tuesday.
Anything from Tuesday. OK. Gotcha. And then what
about today. I know we didn't have any for the band today. Anything outside the band.
All right. Very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. And with that let's go and sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right. We're going to sing How Great Thou Art. You should find the answer there in your hymnal.
If you don't have one please raise your hand. You'll get one.
Again it's the Lord my God when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds that hands have made.
How great thou art. Let's sing it on this first verse all together now.
I hear the rolling thunder
I bow throughout the universe
display. Then sings my
soul my Savior God to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul my Savior
God to thee. How great thou
art. How great thou
art.
When through the woods
and forest plains I'd wander
and hear the birds
sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down from
the mountain grandeur and see
the brook and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul
my Savior God to thee.
How great thou art.
Then sings my soul my Savior
God to thee. How great
thou art. How
great thou
art.
And when I think of God his Son
God's very sent him to
die. I dare stand taken
in. That on the cross
my burden gladly bearing
he bled and died to
take away my sin.
Then sings my soul my Savior
God to thee. How
great thou art. How great thou
art. Then sings my
soul my Savior God to thee.
How great thou art.
How great
thou art.
When Christ shall come
with shout of acclamation
and take me home
a joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow in
humble adoration
and then proclaim my God how
great thou art. Then sings
my soul my Savior God
to thee. How great thou
art. How great thou
art. Then sings my soul
my Savior God to thee.
How great thou art.
How great
thou art.
Amen.
Good singing. Now please turn to hymn number 184.
I love thee my Jesus hymn number 184.
Against what words can I find to tell Jesus
I love him. Hymn number 184.
Singing on this first verse hymn number 184.
All words can I find to tell
Jesus I love him because
he first loved me.
Because of my ransom
he paid with such suffering
upon the cursed tree.
In the morning at the
new time and we're coming in shadows
I love thee my Jesus. I
love thee my King. In rejoicing
and in sorrow today and
tomorrow I love thee my Savior
and Lord.
O God us magnify
Jesus together for praise
be coming near.
And blessing about
me I owe to my Savior
who all things are for
me. In the morning
at the new time and we're coming in
shadows I love thee my Jesus.
I love thee my King.
In rejoicing and in sorrow today
and tomorrow I love me
my Savior and Lord.
May never my
praises be slow or be silent
nor e'er my love
broken. The Savior
is saved and my sins all forgiven
the Savior's work
is done. In the
morning at the new time and we're coming
in shadows I love thee my
Jesus. I love thee my King.
In rejoicing and in sorrow
today and tomorrow I
love thee my Savior and Lord.
O how can I
love thee enough dear Redeemer?
How every pain
my friend. I'll
spread the glad sound of my praise
and my heart love on every
joyful wind.
In the morning at the new time
and we're coming in shadows I love
thee my Jesus. I love thee
my King. In rejoicing and in sorrow
today and tomorrow
I love me my Savior
and Lord.
Amen. Good singing tonight. This time we'll pass offering plates around. As the plates
go around let's turn our Bibles to Ezekiel 4. Ezekiel chapter 4
as we always do. Read the entire chapter beginning verse number 1. Follow along silently
with brother Hester as he reads. Ezekiel chapter 4 starting in verse number 1.
Ezekiel chapter 4 the Bible reads. 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.
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.
Lie thou 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 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 hast 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 arm shall be
uncovered and thou shalt prophesy against it.
And behold I will lay bands upon thee and thou shalt not turn thee
from one side to another till thou hast ended the days of
thy siege. Take thou also unto thee wheat and barley and
beans and lentils and millet and fishes and put them in one vessel
and make thee 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 shalt eat shall be by
weight twenty shekels a day from time to time shalt thou eat it.
Thou shalt drink also water by measure the sixth part of an hen
from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it
as barley cakes and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man
in their sight. And the Lord said even thus
shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles
whither I will drive them. Then said I Ah Lord God
behold my soul hath not been polluted for from my youth
up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself
or is torn in pieces neither came thou abominable flesh
into my mouth. Then he said unto me lo I have given thee
cows dung for man's dung and thou shalt prepare thy bread
therewith. Moreover 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
astonished one with another and consume away for their iniquity.
Father God, Lord, thank you for allowing us to come to a church. Lord, please just bless
Pastor Anderson and fill in with the Holy Spirit and give us ears to hear. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Amen. Ezekiel chapter 4. Before we jump into this I want to back
up to chapter 3 verse 22. I know we already did two whole sermons in chapter
3 but there's just kind of a lot going on in chapter 3 and I feel like the
end of chapter 3 kind of ties in with what we're going to talk about in chapter 4.
So back up to 3 22 the Bible says and the hand of the Lord was there upon me and he said unto
me arise go forth into the plain and I will there talk
with thee and I rose and went forth into the plain and behold the glory
of the Lord stood there as the glory which I saw by the river
kibar and I fell on my face. So basically the big elaborate description
in chapter 1 he sees the same thing again right here in chapter 4
he's going to see something very similar again in chapter 10 but because there are some
differences in chapter 10 he gives a whole big description again.
But just have that in your mind that basically that's what he is facing
when he goes to this plane. It says in verse 24 then the spirit entered into me
and set me upon my feet just like in chapter 1 and spake with me
and said unto me go shut thyself within thine house
but thou O son of man behold they shall put bands upon thee
and shall bind thee with them and thou shalt not go out among them and here's
what I want you to especially pay attention to in verse 26 and I will make thy
tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth that thou shalt be
dumb, dumb meaning unable to speak
and shalt not be to them a reprover for they are a rebellious house
but when I speak with thee I will open thy mouth and thou shalt
say unto them thus saith the Lord God he that heareth let him hear and he
that forbereth let him forbear for they're a rebellious house. There's a lot
to talk about in these verses but I just want to quickly point out some important
things. Ezekiel is asked to do
a lot of strange things in the book of Ezekiel and
he has to suffer a lot of strange things and experience a lot of
strange things. Some of the things we're going to see are in chapter 4 here
and sometimes I think it's easy to just look at Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
and just kind of lump these three big books together, ah, the major prophets
and just kind of throw them all together but here's the thing, you know, these books are very unique
very different from one another and Ezekiel is extremely different
from the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It's a very unique book
and God really puts Ezekiel through the ringer
more than just about any prophet. I mean this guy has to go
through a lot and when he says here, oh, I'm going to make the
your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, you're going to be dumb
it might be easy just to kind of pass over that or not think that's a
big deal but what you're going to see is as we study the book of Ezekiel this comes up over and
over again because he goes through long stretches where he's not able
to talk and then God only gives him the ability to speak
again when he's to preach and so he has to go through long periods
where he's just not able to talk and of course there's kind of a New Testament
parallel of that where Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, goes
through a period of many months where he's unable to speak and then once
he finally writes on the tablet, his name is John, then he gets
his voice back, etc. But this is a big thing with Ezekiel
that he ends up not being able to talk for long periods
in the book of Ezekiel and God's warning him about some of the
things he's going to face, he has to be locked up in his house
and it's like a COVID style lockdown. He has to be locked
up at times and then he's talking about how other people are going to bind
him, he's going to be arrested, he's going to get into trouble in that way and
he's going to preach to the people and when he preaches
to them he's going to say, thus saith the Lord God, he that heareth let him
hear and he that forbereth let him forbear for
their rebellious house. Now this is an important attitude
to understand because this is not isolated here to the book of Ezekiel
this idea of, hey, he that hath an ear let him hear.
Isn't that what Jesus said over and over again? He that will hear let him hear
and, you know, he that forbear let him forbear. The Bible says in Revelation
all the way at the very end of the Bible in chapter 22, he that is
unjust let him be unjust still. He that is filthy let him
be filthy still. He that is righteous let him be righteous still and he that is holy
let him be holy still and behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man
according as his work shall be. And then he goes on to give that invitation
of, you know, the spirit and the bride say come and let him that heareth say
come and him that is the thirst let him come take of the water of life freely. So God is
definitely inviting people to be saved. He wants people to be saved. He's not
willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But as
preachers or as soul winners or as Christians we can't
force people to listen to our message.
You know, sometimes I'll be out soul winning with somebody and they'll knock on the door
they'll do a great job of presenting the gospel and the person doesn't get
saved and then they'll look at me and say like, you know, what should I have done differently there?
And I'm thinking to myself like I wouldn't have done anything differently. It's not that
you didn't do something. It's that not everybody's going to get
saved. I mean, you know, most people are not going to get saved.
And we can't force them to be saved. You can take the horse to the water
but you can't make him drink. All we can do is just explain the gospel to people
preach the gospel and let the chips fall where they may because
they have to make that decision. You know, we can't make it for them.
And we can't force people to believe like us in other areas either.
And so we just need to understand that it's our job to just be faithful
preach the word of God, try to teach people the right doctrine, but at the end of the day people
have to make their own choices and we can't force anything on people. All we can do is
preach and try to compel them to come in but, you know, at the end of the day they're going to do
what they're going to do. Now in chapter four we get into some really strange things that he's
asked to do. He's already been warned about, you know, being locked up in his house
for a time, being arrested later on, that he's going
to experience dumbness where he's not able to speak for periods.
But look what it says in verse number one of chapter four. 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. Set the camp
also against it and set battering rams against it round about.
What is this talking about? Basically what
he's supposed to do is make like a model of the city in a sense.
He draws out the city on a tile and that sort of
level of the city being under siege.
And then it says in verse three, moreover take thou unto thee an iron
pan and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city,
you know, basically his fake city that he has made, and set thy face
against it and it shall be besieged and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be
assigned to the house of Israel. Lie thou 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 iniquity. So, you know,
how long do you think that Ezekiel is going to be asked to lay
on his left side? This is a strange thing to do, isn't it?
He's being asked to lay on his left side. This doesn't sound very comfortable.
Like maybe be comfortable for a little while, but laying on your left side for a
really long time is a strange thing to do, isn't it?
And it says in verse five, for I have 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. So it's over
a year. Because think about it, three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, this is
three hundred and ninety days he is supposed to lay on his
side in front of this city that is there that's
basically a picture of a city that's besieged. And, uh,
if you want to understand what a siege is, it's basically when an invading army
comes to a city and the city has walls that lock
out the invading army, and they don't want to attack the walls
because the people inside the walls kind of have an advantage, they can
throw things down from the walls, they can fire arrows, and they are protected
by the walls, whereas the invaders are sometimes exposed.
So sometimes what they'll do is just kind of just starve them out. They'll just
besiege the city, surround it, lock them in, you know,
nothing can come in, nothing can come out, and eventually they're going to have to do something. They're going to have to
either come out and fight, or they're going to have to give up, because they can't just be that way forever.
So, three hundred and ninety days
is the length of time that he basically acts this out
by laying on his side in front of this city.
Now, why three hundred and ninety days? Well, the Bible says
at the end of verse six, well let's read all of verse six, and when that was accomplished,
them, you know, it's finally over. I'm done laying on my left side
for three hundred and ninety days, he says, okay, now lie on your
right side. Lie again on my right side
and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.
I have appointed thee each day for a year.
Now, what's interesting is that I actually did the math on this, because you can go through
all the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, and in the books of the kings
and the books of the chronicles, it tells you exactly how long they rained,
and then one guy's reign ended, and then this guy's this old when he began to reign, and he reigned
this many years in Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, or he did
right in the sight of the Lord. So I did all that math,
and if you do the math, there are three hundred and
ninety years from when Jeroboam
set up his idol, basically, the sin of Jeroboam
up to this point in Ezekiel. And so if you
crunch those numbers, and there's an article about it on our church website where I crunched
all the numbers and laid it all out, but it actually adds up to three hundred and ninety.
So that's for sure what this is referring to, because the numbers
add up perfectly, and it makes sense, because if you remember,
reading the Old Testament, this comes up over and over again.
Jeroboam's sin, wherewith he caused Israel to sin.
It just keeps being brought up over and over and over again.
And also when it talks about the good kings and the bad kings, it'll say like,
well this guy, you know, did not depart from
the sins of Jeroboam. He still did that. That's one of the things it'll bring up
over and over again. Like this guy did good in the sight of the Lord, but this other guy, he
continued in the sins of Jeroboam. So if you just look up the word Jeroboam,
you're going to see that this sin is brought up over and over again. So what is
the sin of Jeroboam? Basically what happened is King Solomon
ruled over a united kingdom of Israel and Judah,
and when King Solomon died, the kingdom
is split, and his son Jeroboam only ends
up with two tribes, and then you have the ten tribes becoming the northern
kingdom. So Saul and David and Solomon, it's
a united kingdom for most of that period. But then
when Solomon's son Jeroboam comes along, it gets broken into
the northern kingdom of Israel with the capital city eventually of Samaria,
and then the southern kingdom of Judah with the capital city of Jerusalem.
Well, as soon as this kingdom splits right away,
when Jeroboam's in the north and Rehoboam is in the south,
Jeroboam sees a problem with his
rule because of the fact that the religious center is Jerusalem.
So if the people in the northern kingdom
want to worship the Lord three times a year for the three main
festivals where all the males are supposed to appear before the Lord,
they're going to end up going into that southern kingdom. And
he's thinking to himself, you know, if they're going down there all the time three times a year,
they might start to think, hey, these are our buddies,
this is our nation.
We're all one people here. We're all Israel. And then they might want to
reunite or maybe they might get loyal to the king of Judah
or to that capital city of Jerusalem or they might defect
to the southern kingdom with Rehoboam. So what he wants to do, he wants
to have his ten tribes in the north, he wants to have it all for himself,
and he wants to keep things separate because he doesn't want to lose his power because think about it,
Rehoboam is the legitimate son of David.
You know, that's the dynasty, right? I mean, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, that's the dynasty.
Jeroboam is a usurper who is usurping the authority
of these ten tribes. He's not really legitimate in that sense. Now we, of course, know that
God gave him that kingdom because God said that he would do this.
He sent a prophet to him and he tore up his garment and said, here,
you take ten pieces, I'll take two, and thus saith the Lord and all that.
But you could see how people could think
he's illegitimate, the honeymoon's over with this guy, we want
the son of David, we want Rehoboam, we want to be part of the southern kingdom.
This is just what's going on through Jeroboam's head. You know, whether it's legitimate or not,
he's thinking that he doesn't want his citizens
going to Judah three times a year because that's a separate country now.
And so what he decides to do is set up
these golden calves as idols.
And so he puts one in Dan up north and he puts one in
Bethel further south just so that they're close because
this is his whole argument. Jeroboam's whole argument is, well, it's too far for you to go to Jerusalem.
So that's why he has to have two because otherwise they're like,
well, Dan's kind of far or Bethel's kind of far. So he says, oh, we'll do two of them.
Make it convenient, make it close. It's too far for you to
go to Jerusalem. You know, these be thy gods, oh Israel,
that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, right? Like, same thing with Aaron
and the golden calf. You know, what is it with these people and golden calves?
But, you know, archaeology from that part of the world,
you know, whether it's Greece or Crete or
the Middle East and places like that, there's just a lot of archaeology
of idolatry of these calves.
It was just a big thing. And you say, well, that's stupid. But you know what?
All false religion is stupid. You know, is it stupid
to worship a cow?
It's a dumb animal. It's not even like they're picking the smartest
animal. They're not worshiping like a dolphin or an elephant or something.
They're worshiping a cow. But think about, what about the
Hindus? You know, we always think of the sacred cow, right?
And so what sense does it make to worship a cow? But if you look at all the
gods of the heathen, they're all stupid. You know, they're not
any better. If you look at all the, what the Greeks had and what the
Canaanites had and if you read up on any of that literature,
it's all bizarre. And if you read up on the Hindu gods,
there is no god like unto the Lord. Don't ever let anybody
come at you with this thing of like, well, there's so many religions in the world. How do we know which one's right?
Look at the other ones and then come back
and see if you can ask me that question with a straight face because the other religions
are so ridiculous and the Bible is so awesome. So there you go.
That's the answer. The glory of the Lord is found in the Word of
God and shows his greatness and that he is
unlike the gods of the, all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
The Bible is unlike any other book. The God of the Bible is unlike pagan gods.
He's not the same as heathen gods. He's completely different.
And so they make these idols at the hand
of Jeroboam. You got the one in Dan, you got the one in Bethel,
and these things stay around all the way until the captivity
of the land. So they worship these things for literally
390 years. So that's the 390 years.
He says, you're going to lay on your side for one day for every year
of the sin of Israel, which is this idolatrous
worship of this false god. And then, you know, the sins of Judah
is only 40 years, okay, because they stayed
with the Lord a lot longer than the northern kingdom.
And so if you think about it, there's a lot of symbolism here.
Obviously, Ezekiel being dumb,
there's a symbolism of Christ there, because what does the Bible say about Jesus
in Isaiah 53? As a sheep before his
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. And you remember
a lot of times where Jesus is challenged by King Herod, for example, and he just
doesn't say anything. He's just silent. He just refuses to speak.
And so Ezekiel's foreshadowing that a little bit. And then this idea
of, I have laid upon you,
verse 5, I have laid upon thee the years
of their iniquity. And if you think about it, the sins and iniquities
of us all were laid upon Jesus, right?
So there's a picture here of Ezekiel sort of suffering
for sins that he didn't do. Ezekiel's not even
responsible at all whatsoever for the sins of the northern kingdom,
especially something that's been going on for 390 years in a foreign country.
But yet he suffers for it. How does he suffer?
By laying on his side for 390 days. And then he suffers for the sins
of Judah, also not his fault. Now, you might
look at this and wonder, you know, why is God torturing Ezekiel?
Poor guy. And where do we read the whole book of Ezekiel?
I mean, he's picking him up by the hair and
dragging him around by the hair. His wife dies.
And then he's not allowed to cry about it. I mean, he has to do all of these
incredible things. It's very strange that he has to do all this.
And you say, why would God have him do all this? Well, first of all, it's all
symbolic. There's a lot of things that we can learn from this in an allegory.
But another takeaway that we could get from this
is that our own lives, we need to realize,
really ultimately
exist to bring glory to God. And so
what we need to understand about our lives is that at the end of the day,
we don't really matter as much as he matters.
So we are not the main character here.
You know, when it comes to Faithful Word Baptist Church, when it comes to Arizona,
when it comes to the world, the plan of God, Christianity,
we are not really the main character. We are
a side story here. It's really about Christ. And so
as John the Baptist said, I must decrease.
He must increase. So we need to understand that our lives
definitely exist to bring glory to God. And so sometimes we might
have to suffer or go through hard things or
go through pain and things. And God has a greater purpose
for what he's doing and it's going to lead toward people's salvation.
Now this book right here, Ezekiel, is one of the longest books
in the Bible. I mean, it's 48 chapters. It's a very long book.
And think about how many literally millions
of sermons have been preached from the book of Ezekiel. Literally millions.
And so, I mean, this book has impacted
billions of people, you know, in the course of history. And so
you think to yourself, man, this Ezekiel is going through
a lot of pain and suffering and trials. But at the end of the day, though, I don't think he has
any regrets because he's in heaven
and he pens down one of the most significant books in the Bible.
He's greatly used by God. He pictures Jesus Christ. He does
all this. And so obviously this is an extreme example.
And I don't think God is going to put us through anything like this.
Although he might. I don't think God's going to necessarily put us
through anything of this magnitude. But the Bible often uses extreme
examples. Like think about Job. That's a pretty extreme example
of just he loses everything. He's covered in
sores all over his body. He's scraping his sores. And his
ten children die. His wife turns on him. He
loses all his wealth. It's an extreme example. And God
shows us these extreme examples because then we can look at our own situation and say,
okay, you know, what's the limit? And God's like,
well, here's Job. Here's the limit. Or here's
Ezekiel. Here's the limit. And then you're like, I'm not even close to the limit.
You know, if you think about it, whatever we're going through, whatever God
asks us to do, it's not as bad, it's not as painful
as what these guys had to do and some of the stuff that they went through.
Or, you know, think about the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
He died young. He died at 33
years old. He didn't even get to get married or have kids.
He died. And think about the pain and the
suffering and the mockery that he went through just with the crucifixion.
I mean, he went through an incredible amount of pain and
suffering and we have not yet resisted unto blood
striving against sin. And so what we go through
is a light affliction. And so when I think of Ezekiel
going through all this, I think to myself, you know what, as a preacher, if I'm going to preach the word of God
to lots of people, I'm probably going to have to go through some painful things, some
hard things, and at the end of the day, I must decrease, he must
increase, it's not about me, it's about him. That's one of the things
that we can learn here from the life of Ezekiel, somebody who's basically sacrificing
himself in a lot of ways. Sacrificing freedom,
sacrificing comfort, sacrificing a lot
so that the word of God can be preached and so that God's
work can go forward. And we don't always understand why God
does the things that he does, but he has a reason for the things that he does.
And you know, we often hear people say this thing of, you know, God's not going to
put on you more than you can handle, right? Because the Bible says
that, you know, he'll not tempt us above that we are
able. And I believe that, you know, I firmly believe
that God is not going to give us more than we can handle, but let me tell you something
that I've experienced though and that I've learned is that God's
never going to give you more than you can handle. But you know what? He often
takes you just right up to the edge though, doesn't he? That's the part that people forgot
to tell you. When they tell you God's never going to give you more than you can handle, they forgot to
tell you that sometimes he'll just give you like exactly what you can handle.
And literally take you to the brink, literally take you to the precipice,
literally take you to the edge. And so, you know, if you ever get there, maybe you're there
right now, I hope not, but if you ever get to that point where you're just right on
the edge, just realize you're not alone. You know, God brings
people sometimes to the point of what they can handle, but he's not going to give you more
than you can handle. He's not going to tempt you above that you're able, but he will
sometimes tempt you right up to what you're able
and bring you right up to the edge. And, you know, I feel like I've been
there a couple times, you know, just right there at the edge of what I felt like I could handle
and that's okay. You know, God is making us stronger.
You know, if you think about it, if you go to the gym, the best workout
is the one where you go right up to the edge of what you can handle, not the one where you're
like, I could have done three more reps. You know, if you could have done three more reps,
you're probably not building any muscle because, you know, it's too easy.
So that's the way it is sometimes with Christian growth.
Sometimes God will really push us to our limits, even though
he won't go beyond the limit. So it says in verse 7,
Therefore, thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be
uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it. And behold, I will lay bands upon
thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended
the days of thy siege. So don't get tired
of lying on your left side and switch to the right side. Nope.
Left side, 390 days.
Now, I prefer to lie on my left side, so thankfully that was the longer
of the two, but I don't know if that's any consolation for him.
Now look at the next thing that he has to do. Verse 9.
Take thou also unto the wheat and barley and beans and lentils
and millet and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make
thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side.
390 days, shalt thou eat thereof.
So he has to measure out this ration of food
and a ration of water, where he has to measure out, and he only eats a certain
amount of food, and it's just this bread that's going to be a
defiled bread, which in case you don't know what defiled means, it basically means
contaminated. That's what, in our modern vernacular, we don't really use the word
defiled. We would say contaminated. So he's going to eat this
contaminated meal, and it's rationed
bread and water. Now look, I don't even want to eat just bread and water for 390 days.
Let alone land on my side, let alone contaminated.
All right? And so
he does this to signify that these people are going
to be locked in the city, and they're not
going to have food. Because this is what happens, like I said earlier,
when there's a siege, you have to ration food, you have to ration water,
and you start eating nasty things. Because if you
remember, for example, the book of 2 Kings, you've got a situation
where the people are starving, and they're besieged, and
basically they're eating doves dung,
they're eating brains, they're eating dung, and then eventually they even resort
to cannibalism. And there's many instances of that in
scripture of people resorting to that, because they're in the siege and in the
straightness, and they have no food. So this is what
he's acting out, or picturing,
okay? And so
he's supposed to pre-make his food, you know, and weigh it all out, measure
it all out, have this food ready, this is what he's going to eat during this, you know,
390 day project.
And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be
by weight twenty shekels a day, from time to time shalt thou eat it,
thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hen,
from time to time shalt thou drink, and thou shalt eat it as barley cakes,
and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of
man in their sight. So he's saying, make sure that the
Israelites, because here's the thing, Ezekiel is a well-known preacher, I mean, he's
preaching the word of God, everybody knows who he is, he's a
powerful man of God, he's preaching the word of God, and he's going through
this process in front of them to teach them
something, it's like an object lesson, and so God
tells him, you know, you're going to bake it with dung in their
sight. Now, I don't know exactly what he means by with dung,
I'm hoping that the dung is not one of the ingredients,
you know what I mean, because that's one way of reading
this, you know, I mean, it's like, hey, take the weed, and then with dung, you're going to bake
it. So one way of reading this would be dung is an ingredient,
that he's actually, you know, another would be
that dung would be a spread, and that's even worse,
that's, I'm really hoping it's not that.
Another thing is that it's just cooked in the, this is why I'm hoping
that it's just cooked in the presence of human dung, you know, and
that is a legitimate interpretation here, because it just says bake it with
dung, and really that could mean any of the things that I just said.
Because if you put it in the oven, and you put, think about this,
and you say, well that's not so bad, well, think about it though.
Let's say we go to your home oven in the kitchen, put the loaf
of bread in, and then just slide, you know, in that other tray,
just slide in a baking sheet with a little bit of human dung on it,
is that bread going to taste right?
That's going to defile it. That's going to contaminate it.
And so, best case scenario,
is getting the smoke of the human dung, or it's getting the aroma
of the human dung, it's getting contaminated by the human dung, that's the best
case scenario. And then to take the middle approach would
be that it's an ingredient, and then there's the one that I'm not even
going to mention again, that's the worst case scenario, okay.
So Ezekiel is not jazzed about this.
So Ezekiel says, ah, Lord God,
what are you doing to me here?
He says, bake it with dung that
cometh out of man, verse 12,
in their sight. And the Lord said, even thus shall the children
of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I
will drive them. Then said I, ah, Lord God, behold,
my soul hath not been polluted from my youth up until now.
Up even till now, have I not eaten of that which dieteth
of itself, or is torn in pieces, neither came there abominable flesh in my mouth.
He's like, okay, let me get this straight, so I spend my whole life being kosher
so that I can eat my food
with human waste? He's like, I didn't eat
any pork, I didn't eat anything that died of itself,
I didn't eat something that was torn in pieces, I mean, I have followed the letter
of the dietary law, and you want me
to bake my bread with human dung?
Then he said unto me,
lo, I've given thee cow's dung for man's dung.
God's merciful, amen.
And thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. Hey, this is the power of prayer right
here. You know, and one of the things that I love about the Bible,
and one of the things that I love about God is that God has a will,
God has a plan, but God's will is pliable.
You know, I don't buy into this Calvinistic,
fatalistic, predetermination view that
basically, well, when we pray, it doesn't really change anything, it's just,
we're kind of just going through the motions when we pray. You know, I believe that prayer really
changes things. You know, there could be, you know, there could be some times in your life
where you gotta go through some stuff.
You know, you got some dung that you gotta go through in your life, but you know what, if you pray,
God can give you a different kind of dung that's not as bad.
You know what I mean? It's like, hey, I'm going through some crap right now,
but it's not as bad as the crap I would have gone through if I didn't pray about it.
You know, that's what I take from this.
You know, sometimes the feces are unavoidable,
but at least, you know, you can pray
and it can be not as bad. And so that's what happens here in this story.
And so, he gets to substitute,
so God's plan to really drive this thing home, God had
a plan with man's dung, but
he gives him a substitution in his mercy. He says, okay,
do it with cow's dung. Now, I don't know about you, but this is way better.
And I'm not being silly, I'm serious.
It's grass fed, exactly, yeah. You know, hopefully it's organic.
But honestly, because if you think about it, you know, if you're out
hiking or something and you run into a cow pie,
obviously it's gross, but it's not really that
gross. Human waste is a lot worse, because
humans are omnivores. They're eating everything.
And our dung is just so much nastier and smellier than cow's
dung. You know, cow's dung, it stinks, but it doesn't stink
like a restroom or something. It's bad. It's not as bad.
So, this is merciful indeed.
He gets to do it with cow's dung. And then it says
in verse number 16, moreover, 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 away for their iniquity. He's basically telling them,
you know, even though you're in captivity, a lot of people have been taken away
to Babylon captivity. Let's remember the context of the book of Ezekiel, right?
In the Babylonian captivity. Some people are left behind in Jerusalem.
Many people have gone away captive into Babylon. But they're all under the
power of the Babylonians. And they're
still not right with God. And it's Ezekiel's job to get them right with God.
They can't come back into the promised land unless they get right with God.
They've got 70 years to get right with God. And right now, they're a stiff-necked
rebellious house. They're not going to listen. And so Ezekiel's job
is to preach to them. And he's using these extreme
illustrations warning them of how bad their life could get.
You know, why is God having him lay on his side
and eat this weird ration of this nasty bread? It's because
of the fact that they feel like they've already been punished, but he's
showing them, oh, you don't understand. It can get a lot worse
than what you're experiencing right now. You think things are bad in Jerusalem right now?
Wait until I punish you even more and you don't even have any food to eat.
And oh, you think it's bad to be carried away into Babylon. But how about being in Babylon
and eating dirty food and not having enough
and going through pain and misery and sorrow. He's saying, look, I can make your life
worse. And so when something bad happens in our life, when God
punishes us or chastens us because we're backslidden or away
from the Lord or whatever, you know, when we sin and we get punished,
what we need to realize is it can always get even worse than that if we harden
our neck. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck
shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. You know, if God
tries to get our attention and God chastens us and chastises us and
we just kind of stiffen up at that and we don't get the message,
something worse is coming. And so it's smarter
to respond to that chastening right away, have a tender heart
to God's correction. When we read things in the Bible that correct us,
when we hear preaching that corrects us, be tender to that and fix it right
away. When something bad happens in our life and we feel like, hey, this might be the hand
of the Lord chastising me because I've got things in my life that are wrong,
realize that worse things could be coming down the road if we don't get right. And
that's why I think Ezekiel has to do things that are so extreme
because we look at this and say it's overkill. You could have just preached a
sermon Ezekiel or lay on your side for a week.
That's already weird enough. It's like, nope, 390 days.
It's so extreme. It's so radical. But God
is showing them how bad it can actually get and
how long he has put up with their garbage for 390 years. For 40 years
he's put up with their garbage and he's sick of it and he can make them miserable
and make them run out of food and go through all these things. And so it's a very
strong warning. It's a powerful warning. Now of course
some misguided business
has decided to sell Ezekiel 4-9 bread.
Who knows what I'm talking about? Who's eaten the Ezekiel 4-9 bread?
It's baked in the presence of dung. No, I'm just kidding.
Thankfully it's not called like Ezekiel 4
12 bread or something, you know.
That's a little too close for my comfort, you know. I don't even like
Ezekiel 4-9 bread to be honest. I just don't think it tastes good. You said it tastes
like cardboard. Yeah. I
think that white bread is actually better for you,
believe it or not. You know, this whole whole wheat thing has been a scam.
And you like this kind of preaching because it's kind of telling you what you want to hear
anyway. You know what I mean? Because here's the thing. We all
kind of preferred the white bread but we did the whole wheat bread because we thought we were doing something
good for our health. And this has nothing to do with the sermon. I'm going
off on a little tangent here. But here's the thing. You know, my whole family, we
all did, we switched to the whole grains a long time ago, right?
We all switched to the whole grains and all of my kids got cavities.
We got rid of all the whole
grains and switched all back to white and no more cavities.
Because there's stuff in the whole
grains. It's called phytic acid. I'm not an expert on these things but I know that
there's phytic acid and it's not good for your teeth. It's not good for your bones.
And so yeah, it might be lower on the glycemic index
doing the whole wheat stuff. But to me, the trade off of what it does
to your teeth and bones. So when you go to Chipotle, you get the white
rice. Not the brown rice. I'm just trying to help
you. I'm your friend. I'm your pastor. I'm helping your taste buds and
your teeth and your health. We do white. The best kind
of bread is sourdough bread as far as for your health.
I would say sourdough is the best. If you can't do sourdough, then do white.
Whole grain is the last resort. So stay away from the Ezekiel 4-9 bread.
I don't care if it has a Bible verse on the wrapper.
I wouldn't do it. So
anyway, that had nothing to do with anything. I'm just throwing that out there because
I care about your teeth.
So Ezekiel, he's going through these difficult things.
He's got to lay on his side. He's got to eat this bread and
drink this water. And it's so extreme because he's just trying to show
Israel how offensive their sins are in the eyes of God.
Because we can often look at our sin and think that it's not that big of a deal.
And one of the things that I think God is trying to show us throughout the word of God
is that our sin is worse than we think or it offends God more than we think.
If you think about the animal sacrifices, it's easy to just read over those animal sacrifices.
But it would have been kind of gnarly to see these things in person
where they're wringing animals' necks off and chopping them up and slitting their throats.
If you've ever seen these things in person, it's gruesome. It's brutal.
And imagine if you're killing all these beasts, just how much blood and gore
would be there. There's a lot. And I think God's showing us the ugliness of our sin
there, too, with all of the beasts being butchered
and all of the blood being poured out and all the burning
and all the flesh and all that. And then I think things like this, too,
show us that God is very offended by
our sin. And he compares it unto dung. It's a stink
in his nostrils. It's a bad taste in his mouth. And so basically he's saying,
I'm going to make you taste in your mouth what I taste in my mouth
because of your wickedness, because of your sins, of idolatry
or theft or fornication or whatever it is.
And so that's part of why this is. Now, Ezekiel
is a wild ride of a book. And I'm looking forward to it because
there's so much great preaching in these books. But especially Ezekiel
of the three major prophets is probably the wildest
ride. It's a fascinating book. And
it's very strange. And many times we're going to see in this book where the children of
Israel, you know, approach Ezekiel and they're just like,
what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? Because he does all these really
strange object lessons. And if you think about it,
if we saw someone doing this right now, we'd think they were crazy.
Wouldn't we? Some guy is going to lay on his side for over a
year. He's got all of his food
laid out. He's got all, talk about, you know, meal planning. He's got all his Tupperwares.
You know, each Tupperware has got this piece of bread
baked with dung, little
ration of water and so forth. But yet, isn't it amazing
how even though these things are so strange and so
wild and so, you know, almost just unbelievable
to the human mind that anybody would do this or that God
would ask people to do this. But yet, here this book is in our Bible.
And in fact, not only is it in our Bible, nobody disputes it being
there. Nobody thinks to themselves like, man, sometimes I wonder about the book of Ezekiel.
Nobody does. I mean, the book of Ezekiel is the word of God.
Everyone agrees. I mean, it's, you know, all of Christianity
acknowledges this is God's word. We have no doubt about that.
I don't question it for one second. Why? You know, and
to me, this shows the awesome power of God's word.
God's word is so powerful. And I mean,
the book of Ezekiel has so many quotable verses and just
such powerful statements in it. Preachers are quoting Ezekiel all the time
because it just has such powerful, great preaching. And if you think about it,
the fact that even though Ezekiel is doing all these wild things,
people still listen to him.
They don't just write him off like, oh, this guy's a lunatic. Why? Because
never man spake like this man. You know, the word of God is so
powerful, they know it's the word of God. Even though some of the stuff
he does seems crazy, they know it's the word of God because the word of God
authenticates itself. You know, how do I know that
Ezekiel is the word of God? Do I have some
archaeological evidence for that? Absolutely not.
The way that we know that Ezekiel is the word of God is because it's so
powerful. Everything in the Bible is powerful. All 66 books are
powerful. That's how we know that they're canon. That's how we know
that they're scripture. And so, you know, this book has been included in
scripture because it's so powerful. It's the word of God that even in spite
of some of the weirdness of it, and again,
I'm not saying it's weird objectively speaking. I'm saying to us,
you know, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And so on a human level,
we could look at this and say, this is pretty strange. It's in our flesh, in our
human understanding. And I guarantee you that there were a lot of people at the time that thought
that this guy is just completely crazy and out of his mind. But why did so many
people listen to him? And why is it included in the Old Testament?
And why is it included in our Christian Bible? We all know it's God's word because
God's word. And you say, well, that's circular. Yes, yes, you're right.
Good observation. So what?
You know, that's not logical. It's circular.
Folks, I believe the Bible because the Bible.
Any questions? No man
could write the book of Ezekiel. And many have tried. There are so many
fake scriptures out there. People have tried to write this stuff. And it's a joke.
None of it can even come close. He is, oh, the Catholic
Society, which books are in the Bible? You know what?
Try reading any of the other books that got left out.
Gospel of Thomas, you know, Gospel according to Judas Iscariot,
you know, Book of Enoch, Book of
Jasher, you know, try to read any of these books. Go read the apocryphal books.
And you know what you're going to find? They're all junk. They're not even close
to the power of this book right here. So it's not like, oh, man,
we got 10 gospels. Which four do we include? Well, let's go
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There's not even a runner up.
There's not like a fifth book that just almost made the cap but didn't.
It doesn't exist. Gospel of Thomas,
it's not even a gospel. Like, it's way shorter.
It's way shorter than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And it doesn't even
contain the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, right?
It's just like a list of sayings and it just sounds like some
vaguely Christian guy is smoking pot and talking to you late at night.
That's what the Book of Thomas sounds like.
Seriously. And to me, that doesn't sound
like a way I would want to spend any evening ever.
You know, and so the Book of Ezekiel, it's such an amazing book
because it's such a wild ride and
so different than other Old Testament books and so
different than Isaiah and Jeremiah but yet it is so powerful
and as we go through, we're going to get to so many just powerful quotes
that you've heard your whole life because it's just, there's just so much good preaching
in this book. And so it's really a lot that we
can take away from this book and I'm enjoying, you know, doing a deep dive on it
by doing one chapter per week on Wednesday nights. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this amazing book, Lord.
Thank you for the man Ezekiel who was willing to
go through all this and who yielded himself to your will and submitted himself
to going through these public spectacles and doing these strange
things, Lord. And Lord, when we think about
what you've asked us to do as New Testament Christians, you haven't really asked us to do
anything that's really that hard compared to this. I mean,
today we've got Christian young people ashamed to, you know,
stand and be counted as children of yours but then
you know, here's a guy who's willing to just really
act bizarre in public because you told him to, Lord. Help us
to at least be willing to stand up for Jesus Christ and
speak your word and witness and
not to be ashamed of the gospel, Lord. Help us not to be ashamed of
you and your words and this evil and adulterous generation. And in Jesus' name
we pray, Amen.
Amen. Let's take our hymnals please and turn to hymn number 407.
407, Faith of Our Fathers, hymn number 407.
Number 407 on this verse.
Faith of our fathers
holy faith
we will be true to thee
till death our fathers
chained in prisons dark
we're still in heart
and conscience free
our sweet would be their children's faith
if they like them
could die for thee
faith of our fathers
holy faith
we will be true to thee
till death faith of
our fathers we will
strive to win all
nations unto thee
and through the truth that comes
from God mankind
shall man indeed be
free faith of our fathers
holy faith
we will be true to
thee till death
faith of our fathers we
will love both friend and
foe in all our strife
and preach thee to us
love knows how
by kindly words
and virtuous life
faith of our fathers
holy faith
we will be true to thee
till death
Let's do this.