Today we turn to Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a man who was deeply influenced
by Jeremiah, at least for 25 years.
He was in Babylon.
You know, God had told his people, you
have to be punished, accept this judgment I'm
sending upon you, submit to the King of
Babylon and go.
He tried for more than 40 years, as
we saw through Jeremiah, to save them from
going to Babylon, but they would not listen.
And finally, he said, well, now the best
thing for you is to accept the chastening.
See, God does not want to chasten us.
Jesus never had to be chastened.
Paul would never have needed a thorn in
the flesh unless he was in danger of
spiritual pride.
Chastening is when he sees that we are
going astray or have gone astray.
And when that happens, the best thing to
do is to submit to the chastening.
So he told the people, if you go
to Babylon, I'll bless you, accept the chastening
for 70 years, accept the discipline.
And a lot of people went, some were
forced to go.
But there, God gave them prophets, Ezekiel and
Daniel.
See, that's a great encouragement.
The prophets were not only in when they
were in Judah, that there in that distant
land, God loved them, sent them prophets, even
in a time of discipline and backsliding, God
still sends his prophets to speak to us.
He does not forsake us.
And in verse 1 we read of Ezekiel,
we read in verse 3 that he was
the son of a priest and he was
training to be a priest.
But in the 30th year, when he was
30 years old, verse 1, God called him
to be a prophet.
We may plan our life to have a
certain ministry and God may call us to
something totally different.
And then we must be willing like Ezekiel
to drop whatever God has called us to.
Actually, the life of a priest was much
safer than the life of a prophet.
Priests were not usually killed, prophets were.
And a prophet had a very tough time,
because God's hand was very heavy on a
prophet most of the time and he had
to suffer a lot, as Ezekiel did suffer.
He would not have suffered like that if
he were a priest.
There are certain ministries in God's kingdom, which
involve more suffering than others.
You know, the Lord told Peter that you're
going to stretch out your hands and somebody's
going to carry you where you don't like
to go.
And when we suffer, the temptation is to
look at other people like Peter looked at
John and said, what about him?
And the Lord says, that's none of your
business.
You just follow me.
If God calls you to a ministry which
involves suffering, my advice to you is don't
look at anybody else.
Don't worry about them.
Ezekiel responded immediately and thank God he responded.
If he had not responded, we would never
have heard of him.
If Hudson Taylor had not responded when God
called him to go to China, if C
.T. Studd had not responded when God called
him to Africa, we'd never have heard of
them.
If Jim Elliott had not responded when he
was called to go to South America, we'd
never have heard of him.
And we'd never have heard of Ezekiel.
Yeah, they responded as soon as God called
them.
And the 30th year seems to be very
significant.
Joseph was 30 when he became ruler in
Egypt.
David was 30.
Ezekiel was 30.
Jesus was 30, both in the Old and
the New Testaments.
And I think most of the apostles were
around 30 when they started their ministry.
And that gives me an indication that that's
around the age God wants to pick us
up and to fulfill a ministry through us.
But prior to that, he spends years in
preparing us for a ministry.
And if you allow God to prepare you
during the years prior to your coming to
that age of ministry, then you can be
ready by the time you're 30 or 35.
You can be ready for a ministry God
has planned for you.
But a lot of young people are impatient.
Now, I'm not saying we cannot go out
and serve God.
You can serve God when you're 16.
Sure.
But in the early years, God has to
keep you under authority.
And a lot of young people chafe under
that authority.
And so they never in their whole life
come into a ministry.
I'm sure Ezekiel in his younger days submitted
to the prophecy of Jeremiah and listened to
it, studied it.
And God saw the faithfulness of this young
man and said, you're not going to be
a priest, you're going to be my prophet.
And it says here, the heavens were open
over him and he saw visions of God.
And the Lord gave him a message.
The heavens were open and it says the
hand of the Lord was upon him.
Now, that's an expression that comes seven times
in Ezekiel, the hand of the Lord upon
him.
It meant that he could not do what
he wanted.
It's like God says, you got to go
where I want you to go.
Now, if we can live like this all
our life, with the heavens open over us
all the time.
And that's very easy if you keep your
conscience clear and you humble yourself by humility
and the fear of the Lord.
The heavens can always be open over you
and you allow the hand of the Lord
to be upon you, even when he takes
you where you don't like to go.
You see certain times in chapter three, for
example, the hand of the Lord was upon
him and he went in the heat of
his spirit.
He didn't want to go, but he went
because he was submitted to God.
A true servant of God does not live
by feelings.
It's not a question of whether I feel
like going.
Feeling like going is for those who serve
themselves.
Those who serve God go whether they feel
like going or don't feel like going.
They move by the hand of the Lord
and the message of God.
In verse four onwards, he gives us a
description of this vision that he saw.
And just a few things I want to
mention in this vision.
There were four living beings that came out
of that cloud in verse five and each
of them had four faces.
And those four faces were those of a
lion, verse 10, a human face in the
front, a lion, an ox and an eagle.
Now, we don't know exactly what these mean,
but we see something of that in Revelation
2.
Perhaps we could refer to it like this,
that the lion speaks of strength, power, authority.
The ox speaks of service.
The eagle speaks of being heavenly.
And the man speaks of, in spite of
all this, being very human.
And you could relate this also to the
various aspects of Christ.
But these are characteristics certainly that need to
be found in all of God's servants.
I just mentioned that in passing.
Now, the point I want you to notice
here is about this vision where he saw
wheels on the ground, verse 15.
The wheels were moving along with the spirit.
It says in verse 20, the spirit of
the four living beings was in the wheels.
Wherever the spirit went, the wheels and the
living beings went to.
When the living beings moved, the wheels moved.
The living beings stopped, the wheels stopped.
When the living beings flew, the wheels rose
up.
And it speaks here of wheels within wheels
in verse 16.
Each wheel had a second wheel turning crosswise
within it.
And that means going this way or going
this way.
And this is a picture of the sovereign
working of God in the circumstances that come
across our life.
The circumstances we encounter, whether it's in this
direction or this direction, wherever we go, there's
a sovereign working of God.
And the Holy Spirit works through these circumstances.
When the spirit went, the wheels went.
That's what it says.
Wherever the spirit went, the wheels also went.
So the Holy Spirit is the one who
controls the circumstances of our life.
This is, I believe, one of the most
important things that we need to recognize in
these last days.
The sovereignty of God over all circumstances, whether
the wheels are going north, south or east,
west.
It makes no difference.
One wheel goes this way, one wheel goes
that way.
But it's a sovereign working of God in
it all.
Wherever you go, you'll find the sovereign working
of God from north to south, from east
to west.
You remember Jesus said, all authority in heaven
and earth is given to me.
Therefore, go into and make disciples of all
nations.
Now, today that has been changed by preachers
who say people are dying in sin.
Therefore, go into all nations.
That's not what Jesus said.
Jesus never said people are dying in sin.
Therefore, go into all nations.
He said, all authority is given to me
in heaven and earth.
Matthew 28, 18.
Therefore, go into all nations.
If I went out to serve the Lord
because I believe there is a need, in
my case, okay, I'm a teacher and I
feel there's a need for a teaching ministry.
So I go here, there and everywhere.
I'm going to become a nervous wreck like
a lot of Christian workers have become.
I don't do that.
I say, Lord, you have all authority in
heaven and earth and you tell me to
go and make disciples, I'll do it.
In other words, I'm under that authority.
That's the way you are to serve the
Lord.
Then you find all circumstances work for your
good.
But if you wander where you like and
do what you like, you may find things
don't work out exactly as God wanted it
or as you would like it to work.
So here we see of a life led
by the spirit.
That is a truly spiritual life.
The eyes of the Lord, it speaks about
the eyes of the Lord here.
The eyes of the Lord move to and
fro throughout the whole earth.
We saw in 2 Chronicles 16, verse 9,
working on behalf of those whose hearts are
completely His.
So we turn now to verse 28.
All around this person, around this throne where
there was a figure, there was a throne
in verse 26, was a glowing halo like
a rainbow shining through the clouds.
And this is God's symbol of God's covenant,
as we know.
If there are two things that we must
remember, both are here in this chapter.
One is God's sovereignty over all the circumstances
of the earth that affect us.
The second is God's covenant symbolized by the
rainbow.
You must remember God has made an everlasting
covenant with us through Jesus Christ.
He has said in Hebrews 13, 5 and
6, I will never leave you nor forsake
you.
He has made an everlasting covenant with us.
That is the basis on which we move.
We don't move on the basis of need,
human need, although we look at it.
We don't live in fear of human governments
or their rules and regulations.
We move under the sovereignty of God, believing
that we are covenant people.
It's so important in these days to remember
that.
Let's go to chapter 2.
We find, you find here a man who
is under God's authority.
The Lord says to him, stand up, I
want to speak to you.
And the spirit came into him as he
spoke and set me on my feet.
And he said, listen carefully, I am sending
you to the nation of Israel.
You know, as we wait upon God, though
we may not hear an audible voice like
Ezekiel, I believe it is, it's possible to
have just as real and as certain a
sense of calling and a sense of God
sending you as Ezekiel had.
It may take time.
Now, when I started my ministry, I did
not know immediately what my ministry was going
to be.
But now, as the years went by, I
began to discover it.
And as I stuck to that, now, as
I look back, I find fulfillment.
But I know so many people who tried
to drag me away from the ministry God
called me to.
The Lord says, I'm sending you with a
particular ministry.
And it's very important that you learn to
wait upon God and to hear God speaking
to you and telling you what he has
called you for.
Sometimes you can choose God's second best.
I remember about 30 years ago when I
was in a lot of financial difficulty.
I didn't have much at that time.
A Christian organization invited me to be its
director and offered me a lot of earthly
advantages.
If I joined it was a Western organization
working in India.
And I said, no, I can't do that
because even though I'm in need, this is
not the ministry God has called me to
to sit behind a desk and be an
administrator.
God's called me to preach the word.
And I'm so thankful I didn't accept that
offer.
It was like a temptation, not a temptation
to sin, a temptation.
Now, if I look back, if I had
made that decision 30 years ago, I don't
think I'd have gone into sin.
I'd have still been doing something for the
Lord, but it wouldn't have been God's best.
So from these examples of these servants of
God in the Bible that we've been considering,
I want to encourage you to remember and
to consider the fact that God has a
specific task for you.
And it's wonderful to realize it when you're
young.
Wait on the Lord and say, Lord, show
me that.
And once you've shown it to me, it
won't become clear in one day or a
period of years.
It'll become more and more clear.
And as it becomes clear to you, stick
to it and you won't have any regret
when you come to the end of life.
And the Lord told him, and there are
some things here which are specific for those
who are called for a preaching ministry.
Son of man, verse six, don't be afraid
of them.
You notice that I mentioned that before, how
very frequently in the prophets, this word comes.
Don't be afraid.
Even though their threats are sharp as thorns.
What a word for people who are serving
the Lord in Northern India and other difficult
places today.
Do not fear them.
Don't be afraid.
Even though their threats are sharp as thorns,
bobbed like briars.
And even though their threats sting like scorpions.
I'm reading from the new living translation.
Don't be dismayed by their dark skulls on
their faces.
Remember they are rebels.
Israel was like this when, when Ezekiel prophesied,
they scowled at them, scowled at him and
threatened him and threatened to kill him and
all types of things.
Every prophet faced this.
And these prophets whom you read off in
the Bible were facing the very same things
that a lot of God's servants are facing
today.
And their confidence was in the sovereignty of
God.
And the Lord said to him, you must
give them my messages, whether they listen or
not.
It doesn't make a difference.
Don't think, don't say, oh, they won't listen.
Okay.
They won't listen, but they need to know
that a prophet came and told them after
that your responsibility is over.
That's one of the things that the Lord
kept on stressing to Ezekiel.
Once you have told them the message, your
hands are clean.
Otherwise their blood is on your hands because
you didn't tell them what I told you.
In chapter three, we read about the, the
Lord telling Ezekiel to eat the scroll, eat
this first yourself.
This message, which is for other people, you
must eat yourself first.
So I opened my mouth and he fed
me the scroll.
He said, eat all of it.
Verse three.
And when I ate it, it tasted as
sweet as honey.
Now you find in revelation, the Lord told
John also to do the same thing.
And after eating it, he said, now you
can go and prophesy.
See, this is a principle in ministry of
the word that that word, which God wants
to speak through you to other people, God
wants to speak to you first.
You who teach that others should not steal.
Is there any area in your life where
you're stealing something?
For example, when you speak evil about somebody,
you're stealing a man's reputation.
Do you recognize that as stealing or do
you recognize only stealing a hundred rupees as
stealing?
Gossiping is stealing a man's reputation.
That's what it says.
You who preach that other people should not
steal.
Do you steal?
You who preach that other people should not
commit adultery.
Do you commit adultery?
Do you lust with your eyes?
So the message, if it's not, if I
don't eat the scroll first, God is not
going to anoint my ministry.
I can still get up and preach.
There are multitudes of preachers today who are
preaching without eating the scroll.
If you want an effective ministry, eat the
scroll first.
The word of God is like a two
-edged sword.
One edge is to cut me and the
other edge only I can use to cut
the other.
If it does not cut me, it's no
use trying to cut the other person.
You will be a hard, unmerciful, useless Pharisee
of a preacher.
So eating the scroll is very important.
Called by God, anointed by God, the hand
of God upon him, eating the scroll, this
is how God prepared this man to serve
him.
And he told him in chapter 3 verse
14, it says, the spirit lifted me up
and took me away and I went in
bitterness and turmoil, but the hand of the
Lord upon me was strong.
Sometimes when we have to go somewhere, we
may not have feelings of excitement and joy
like we have when we go to other
places.
It may be feelings of turmoil in our
heart.
Paul speaks in 2nd Corinthians 7 about fighting
outside and fears within.
Paul had fear, but he still went.
So don't go by feelings.
If you go by feelings, you'll never go
where the Lord wants you to go.
I remember once when I was waiting in
the railway station in Bangalore many years ago
to take a train to go somewhere for
ministry and some of my children were sick.
I had to leave them at home with
my wife and I knew I had to
go to this place and I thought there,
what shall I do?
Shall I cancel my trip and go home?
And the word that came to me was,
whatever decision you take, don't take it on
the basis of fear.
You can take a decision to go home
if you like, but don't take it on
the basis of fear.
Fear, oh what will happen to my children
when I go away?
And I learned a lesson that day and
I didn't go home.
The Lord took care of my children.
Now I'm not saying you should do that
always.
Sometimes God may tell you to go home
and help your wife.
So don't follow this rule.
What I say is, whatever decision you take,
take it in faith, not in fear, never.
In faith you say, no I think I
should, this is not so important.
I think it's more important to help my
wife.
Go home.
That may be right in certain situations, particularly
if your wife is worn out, is not
able to cope.
But sometimes the situation may be that the
devil is preventing you from fulfilling an effective
ministry.
So don't go by feeling.
Sometimes when the spirit lifts us up and
takes us away, we go with turmoil, but
we go.
That's what we learned from this passage.
And when you come to verse 23, you
see there, so I got up and I
saw the glory of the Lord just as
I seen it first and I fell face
down in the dust.
Here's another important principle.
See, it's more important to understand these principles
of serving God than just studying a lot
of scriptures.
Put your face in the dust always.
Sometimes it's good to physically do that, to
lie down on the floor in your room
alone before God and say, Lord, this is
where I rightfully belong.
This is what I am, a nobody in
your eyes.
You know, I tell you, my brothers and
sisters, we who preach and stand up in
front of others, we are in tremendous danger
because so many people admire us, exalt us,
that we more than anybody else need to
get alone before God and lie down flat
and recognize what we are before God.
What can we say?
God can take away our breath in a
moment.
He can take away our anointing in a
moment.
I live in fear of that every day
of my life.
I say, Lord, I never want to lose
my anointing.
I don't want to lose it for money.
I don't want to lose it for a
small slip up of conscience.
I don't want to lose it for anything.
Keep your face in the dust.
A wonderful example.
And a man who lives like that, it
says the spirit came into him and set
him up on his feet.
It's good when the spirit falls upon us
and lifts us up.
And he talked to me and said, go
shut yourself in your house.
There you'll be bound with ropes so you
cannot go out among the people.
I will make your tongue stick to the
roof of your mouth so you won't be
able to pray for them and you won't
be able to speak.
Whenever I give you a message, I'll loosen
your tongue and let you speak.
And then you say, this is what the
Lord says.
Some will listen, some will ignore you.
It doesn't make a difference.
It's wonderful to live like this before God.
God says, now don't go.
Don't speak.
Then don't speak.
The Lord says, I'll tell you when to
speak.
And then you speak.
My brothers and sisters, can you hear the
Holy Spirit?
Or do you go by reason?
Reason says it's always right to speak.
The Holy Spirit says sometimes it's not.
Sometimes you should keep quiet.
Learn to live by the Spirit.
This is what I see in Ezekiel.
He's a man who lived by the leading
of the Holy Spirit.
We see here in chapter 4 now, through
a number of signs, the Lord teaches Ezekiel.
He first asked him to make a clay
tablet and then asked him to lie down
on one side for 390 days and then
asked him to lie down on the other
side for 40 days, each symbolizing he was
an object lesson to the people of Judah,
for the people of Israel who were in
Babylon, showing them how God was punishing Jerusalem
and the people of Israel and Judah.
It was, he was a living demonstration.
He wasn't just preaching it.
He was demonstrating it by his life.
The Lord asked him to do some amazing
things like cooking food with dung and to
cut off his, to shave his, verse 5,
his head, chapter 5, sorry, chapter 5, verse
1, to shave his head and his beard
and to keep just a little bit of
that hair with him, verse 4, to show
that only a few people in Israel, a
remnant alone, will be saved.
So you see, if you become a prophet,
you have to forget about all your good
looks and all that.
You, you, if God tells you to shave
your head, you shave your head.
You don't go and say, well, Lord, that
won't make me look nice.
A person who's worried about, you know, he
had to cook his food on dung, make
simple food.
See, a prophet, it would have been far
easier if he was a priest.
But when he was a prophet, he had
to be disciplined in his eating habits, disciplined
in his appearance.
He had not, he could not be bothered
about what people thought about him.
God was sovereign.
Don't ever complain about anything in your appearance
or anything to God.
God has sovereignly determined every little thing in
your life.
It's absolutely true.
I remember when I was a young man
of about 22 and I started preaching God's
word, I started losing my hair.
It wasn't as bad as this, but it
was still pretty much had gone.
I was 22 and I never prayed that
I would get hair on my head.
And I began to think there must be
a reason why God has allowed this.
And I, I got light on it.
I found everything was related to my ministry
for the Lord.
You see, when I would get up to
speak, because I'd lost so much hair, people
thought I was 30, 35 years old.
And so they listened to me.
If they, if they knew that I was
only 22, they said, Oh, we'll wait for
the next preacher.
So I saw that God had a purpose,
even in something like that.
So it may not be like that in
your life, but I just want to tell
you that any little thing that happens.
If you're, if you're totally sold out for
God from your youth, say, Lord, I have
no consideration.
I'm not interested in food appearance, nothing.
I want to be filled with your Holy
spirit.
I want to be anointed.
I want to be true to that anointing
until the end of my life.
I don't want to look at other people.
I want to look at Jesus.
I want to look at these prophets and
I want to follow you.
I tell you, you'll have a wonderful life.
God will teach you his word.
God will speak to your heart.
He'll give you words to speak to other
people, but you have got to be totally
sold out for him.
You have to have no ambition or desire
on earth, not even for honor or acceptance
or money or anything.
It's all God's your body, your time, your
money, your family, everything is God's.
If you're like that, there's no limit to
what God can do through you.
Okay.
Um, in chapter seven, I'm just going to
go quickly through some of these chapters in
chapter seven, we read a title of the
Lord, which most people don't like to hear.
It's called in verse nine, the Lord, the
smiter, the one who punishes with judgment in
chapter eight, we read of the idolatry that
was going on inside the temple.
The Lord said, do you want me to
show you?
The Lord says, I will show you son
of man chapter eight, verse six and seven,
why I have left these people.
And God gave Ezekiel an insight into the
secret sins that were going on in the
midst of God's people and a true prophet.
God will give him words that expose the
sin, which other people cannot see.
You know, one Corinthians 14 says you prophesy
and a man comes in, who's a total
stranger and the secrets of his heart are
made manifest.
And he says, boy, God is here.
So I believe we should covet such a
ministry.
If he prophesied that when we speak God's
word in a church, people whom we don't
know the secrets of their heart are made
manifest by the Holy spirit.
So God showed Ezekiel, what all was going
on inside, how they were weeping.
Verse 14 for the queen of heaven, how
they had idols and all engraved inside.
You see, this is not evident on the
outside.
A lot of people who look Holy on
the outside are pretty filthy inside.
And the Lord saying, this is supposed to
be my temple and see what's going on
inside.
And that's why it's also says in verse
16, they were worshiping the sun.
They were facing eastward verse 16 and worshiping
the sun.
Just like many people today face east and
worship the sun and chapter nine.
We read because of all this, the glory
of God, verse three began to move.
You see the glory of God.
When it begins to depart, when the anointing,
the freshness, the fire has gone, you know,
there's a reason you go to some, many
churches today, there's no anointing.
There's no freshness.
There's no fire.
You see, listen to many preachers today and
you could hear them 20 years ago.
There was an anointing upon them.
It's not there today.
Actually, the anointing on your life should increase
as you grow older.
But with most people I've seen in my
life, preachers in this country, it decreases usually
because they get corrupted with money or compromise
or begin to speak in a way to
please people.
Don't ever make that mistake.
God has called many of you to serve
him, be faithful and don't let the glory
depart from your ministry.
Here the glory departed because there was secret
sin in their life.
And the Lord says in chapter nine, verse
four, walk through the streets of Jerusalem and
you can say the church walk into the
churches and put a mark on the foreheads
of those who weep and sigh because of
the sins they see in the church.
Now, if God were to send an angel
today to put a mark on the forehead
or a secret mark on people who are
weeping for what?
Weeping because the name of Jesus is dishonored
in the church.
How many people do you think there would
be?
I want to ask you, how many times
have you been concerned in your heart that
the name of Jesus is dishonored in India
by Christians?
Dishonored in the church?
Dishonored in the churches?
Whatever denomination you may belong to is dishonored
in all the churches.
Are you concerned about that?
Then there's a mark upon you.
God marks out such people and the Lord
says in that time, kill all the rest.
All the others will end up in spiritual
death.
You will remain in life.
Concern, hallowed be thy name.
The first prayer the Lord taught us to
pray.
If you have a concern for that, there's
a mark upon you and that's the thing
that determines that the glory of God will
be upon you.
And as he began to kill, it says,
first of all, in verse 6, the last
part, the 70 elders were killed first.
The elders who were supposed to be the
leaders were the ones who had no concern
at all.
Tragic.
That's why the glory departed.
In chapter 11, verse 1, we read about
this spirit again, lifting him up and taking
him away.
In chapter 11, verse 23, we find that
the glory of God finally left the city
altogether and went east to the mountain, that
is to Mount Olives, which is east of
Jerusalem.
That's where Jesus ascended up to heaven.
The glory departed and one day, the glory
we read in chapter 43, verse 1 to
4, the glory came back to that same
mountain.
One day when Christ comes back, the glory,
he will put his feet on Mount Olives
and the glory of God will once again
fill the earth.
And as Ezekiel prophesied, we read suddenly that
one man fell down and died, verse 13,
probably somebody who was opposing him.
And notice another thing, verse 15 and 16,
the Lord says, the people in Jerusalem, this
is a very interesting verse, the people left
in Jerusalem are saying, oh, those people in
Babylon are far away from the Lord.
Now he has given this land to us.
The people in Jerusalem were the people who
disobeyed the Lord.
The people in Babylon were the people who
obeyed the Lord and went.
When God chastened them, God said, OK, now
the punishment has come.
Don't rebel against me.
Just go.
But the people in Jerusalem did not go.
And so the Lord says to Ezekiel, give
the exiles this message.
Even though you're in Babylon, I'll be a
sanctuary for you over there.
People thought because the temple is here in
Jerusalem and the this is the place God
chose.
So God is here.
God cannot be with the Babylonians.
I mentioned yesterday how people have separated from
the mainline denominations and started separated assemblies, say
that they are Jerusalem and they think God
is with us.
God is not with those Babylonian groups.
The tragedy today, as I said yesterday, is
that God is neither there nor here.
There's just as much corruption in the so
-called separated churches today and assemblies as there
is in the other denominations.
Just as much pursuit of money, just as
much politics.
God is not there.
God is not there just because you come
out of a system and say, oh, I'm
meeting in this group now.
No, God watches you all the time to
see if you're humble, if you're broken, if
you keep your conscience clear, if you're free
from the love of money and you don't
seek honor on this earth.
So those are warnings for us from the
Old Testament.
And in chapter 13, we read the Lord
rebuking the false prophets.
Verse 3, destruction is certain for the false
prophets and also for the false prophetesses, verse
17, who make magic charms and things like
that.
In chapter 14, verse 3, the Lord rebukes
the people for having idols in their hearts.
And verses 6 to 11, it appears as
though, as you read this, that it is
God himself who allows these false prophets to
be deceived.
Verse 9, if a prophet is deceived and
gives a message anyway, it is because I,
the Lord, have deceived that prophet.
Why does God deceive certain people?
I don't have time to show it to
you.
2 Thessalonians 2, verse 10 and 11.
You read it sometime.
It says, when a man does not love
the truth about himself, God deceives him.
That means when God shows you your sin
and you are not willing to acknowledge it,
you are in tremendous danger.
You will be deceived.
When God tells me to go and apologize
to somebody, maybe someone much younger than me,
and I don't listen to him, I'm in
great danger.
I'm in danger of being deceived.
It says here, I, the Lord, will deceive
that prophet.
Because God is a God of truth.
And when he sees that people don't love
the truth, he allows them to be deceived.
Chapter 14 and verse 14, it says, even
if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, they
would only be able to save themselves.
It's very interesting to see that God could
praise a man like Daniel when Daniel was
alive.
Noah and Job were dead long ago, but
Daniel was still alive.
He was right there in Babylon.
Imagine that Daniel was such a godly man
that God could praise him publicly while he
was alive.
He was much younger than Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a much older man.
And Ezekiel says, I really appreciate Ezekiel, that
he could appreciate a godly young man.
And says, the Lord says that if Noah
and Job and this godly young brother Daniel
were there, only they could save them from
their righteousness.
There you see the humility of a man
like Ezekiel who could recognize godliness in a
younger brother.
It's very rare to find servants of God
like that today, who can appreciate godliness in
a younger person.
I just mentioned that in passing.
And chapter 16 is a very lovely chapter.
You can take time to read it about,
apply it spiritually to the way God found
you when you were in sin, washed you,
clothed you, decked you with the righteousness of
Christ and married you.
But you have been unfaithful to him.
I just want to show you one verse
here in 49 and 50.
Now if I were to ask you, what
was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?
I think more than 99% of Christians
would say their sin was sexual sin, homosexuality
particularly.
That was the ultimate result.
But what was the thing that led them
into that?
That is described in verse 49 and 50.
Sodom's sins, verse 49, were pride, laziness, gluttony,
love of food, not helping the poor and
needy who were around them, that's why I
wiped them out.
He doesn't even mention sexual sin.
Now there's something here I want you to
notice.
What was the result of all this?
Sexual sin.
So what do we learn from that?
Young people, listen.
There is a very close connection between pride
and sexual sin.
There's a very close connection between laziness and
sexual sin.
There's a very close connection between gluttony and
sexual sin.
There's a very close connection between a lack
of concern for other people and sexual sin.
Just think of these four things.
Some of you find, like all young people,
that to overcome sexual desire and the lust
of the eyes and the lust of the
flesh is very, very difficult.
Agreed.
It is very difficult.
Why not begin with these four?
And then you may find that overcoming sexual
sin is easier.
Begin with humbling yourself.
What is the second one?
Laziness.
Begin with being hardworking, diligent.
What's the third?
Gluttony.
Begin with fasting from food once in a
while.
Fourth, a lack of concern for other people.
Think a little more about the needs of
other people.
You please try this prescription and see if
you don't overcome sexual sin much sooner than
just trying to battle sexual sin all the
time.
It's a wonderful verse.
Chapter 17 speaks about Nebuchadnezzar.
Chapter 18, there's a very good verse here
which I think is important for us to
understand from a theological standpoint when people ask
us this question.
Verse 2, 18-2.
Why do you quote this proverb, in the
land of Israel, that the parents have eaten
sour grapes and their children's mouths are having
a bad taste?
That means the parents sinned and the children
are being punished for their sins.
There's a common conception among heathen and even
among many Christians that children suffer for the
sins of their parents.
The Lord says, as I live, you will
not say this proverb anymore in Israel.
The Lord said that 2,500 years ago,
but there are Christians saying it even today.
Do you know that?
There are books being published that the curse
which is upon my great-grandfather has come
down to me and I have to get
rid of it somehow or the other.
What absolute rubbish.
The Lord says, as I live, all people
are mine to judge, parents and children, and
this is my rule.
Verse 4, the person who sins will be
the one who dies.
If my great-grandfather worshipped idols or was
a practiced witchcraft, that's not going to have
anything to do with me once I come
to Christ.
Why?
If I have not come to Christ, okay,
then it's different.
But once I come to Christ, God has
plucked, cut me off from that tree called
the tree of Adam in which I was,
and grafted me into another tree called Christ.
How in the world can there be a
curse upon me?
And yet there are Christians today, a lot
of charismatic Christians who believe that, that there's
a curse which descended from the ancestors.
That means he was still an Adam.
I have been cut off from that tree
and grafted into this tree and there's no
curse in Christ.
He became a curse for me on Calvary,
so that the blessing of God can come
upon me.
So don't believe all these Old Testament teachings.
People go to some verse and here is
what God says in Ezekiel to counter that.
Now it's true that if a man is
a drunkard, his children suffer because there's not
enough money in the home.
That's a different thing.
Physically, materially, we know that children suffer, the
parents are bad.
But spiritually, there is no punishment on a
child for the father's sin, completely out of
the question.
There's no curse on a child because of
the father's sin, especially once he comes to
Christ.
Please remember that everybody's punished for his own
sin.
And let's move on now.
In chapter 23, we read about the apostasy
of Israel and Judah.
Again, the message of two sisters, both became
prostitutes.
The older one was Israel, symbolizing denominational churches,
and Judah, symbolizing separated churches.
And Ezekiel stood and said, both of you
have become spiritual harlots.
Both of you have backslidden because you've come
out of a system.
You say, oh we don't have popes and
bishops now, we have pastors.
It doesn't make a difference.
If you've got a bad conscience and you
don't walk in humility and brokenness, God says
you're just the same as the others.
Just because you change titles, doesn't make a
difference.
Learn something from these lessons.
Judah always felt we are better than Israel.
We're not like them.
They are so bad.
Ultimately they ended up in the same pit
in which Israel ended up.
Chapter 24, we read about part of the
price this prophet Ezekiel had to pay.
His wife died, verse 16.
And the Lord said, this is a sign.
Your wife is going to die and you
must not weep, you must not wail, you
must not uncover your head or take off
your sandals, and don't perform any rituals for
mourning, verse 17.
And don't accept any food brought to you
by your consoling friends.
You see, a prophet was under the hand
of God.
There are many things that he was not
allowed to do, which other people could do.
Remember that when you are a servant of
God, you live by a totally different set
of standards.
You can't do what other people try to
do.
In chapter 26, verse 2, we read of
Tyre rejoicing over the fall of Jerusalem.
A warning to those who rejoice when other
people fall.
Tyre said, wow, my business opportunities are improving
now that Jerusalem is falling.
Don't ever rejoice in the fall of another.
In chapter 28, we read of the prince
of Tyre.
And this is about Satan.
The prince of the king of Tyre was
Satan.
And you read about him in chapter 28
and verse 11 to verse 19.
He was in Eden.
Verse 13 tells us that Satan was first
in Eden.
That was another Eden.
That was another Eden, which was before the
Eden that we read in Genesis 3.
Before when, you know, I told you in
chapter Genesis 1-2, there was a flood
which wiped out the original Eden.
The devil was there and he became the
devil because, verse 17, his heart was filled
with pride because of his beauty.
He corrupted his wisdom and thus he was
defiled.
There's a description of Satan which we saw
along with the one in Isaiah chapter 14.
And then in chapter 29-32, we read
a number of prophecies of judgment on Egypt
and on Pharaoh.
In chapter 33-39, we see the messages
of hope for the future, the restoration of
God's people.
Chapter 33 verses 1-16 speak of man's
responsibility to respond to God.
And chapter 34 is a wonderful chapter which
all those who are shepherds and pastors of
God's people must read.
It deals with bad leaders, people who don't
care for the sheep.
And the Lord says that if you don't
care for the sheep, verse 15, I myself
will take care of my sheep.
It's a very good chapter for those who
are serious about being shepherds.
Chapter 36 speaks about the new covenant.
Verse 25 onwards, I will sprinkle clean water
on you and you'll be clean and I
will put my spirit in you.
Verse 27 is speaking about this new covenant
life where we are going to be, you
know, we're going to find ourselves filled with
the Holy Spirit with rivers flowing out through
us.
This is prophesied here in the Old Testament
in Ezekiel 36.
And I just want you to notice one
thing here, that when this happens, this is
going to happen only if, verse 37, you
pray for it.
If you don't pray, you won't receive.
And verse 31, when it happens, you will
remember your past sins and hate yourself.
This is one of the marks of a
man filled with the Holy Spirit.
He detests himself for all the sin in
his own life.
A spirit-filled man does not primarily see
the sin in others, except as God shows
it to him.
He sees his own sin and he loathes
himself.
Chapter 37 is that wonderful picture of the
valley of dry bones, where we see this
valley that Ezekiel sees of dry bones.
And God, first of all, says, prophesy to
it the word of God.
And the bones come together and flesh comes
upon it.
And he says, you need one more thing.
What did we see in Genesis 1?
The word of God and the Holy Spirit.
So he says, this needs one more thing.
Now they have come together.
Now you need the Holy Spirit to come
upon them.
And then when the Holy Spirit came upon
them, they came up and became a mighty
army for the Lord.
I believe that's the picture of what God
wants to do in the church.
So many Christians are like those dry bones,
no freshness, no life.
And we can say the word of God
brings them together.
And there's a little bit of beauty when
the flesh comes on top of the bones.
There's a certain amount of beauty.
And we can be people who study the
word, understand the word, and it brings a
certain amount of attractiveness in our life.
But there's one more thing that we need.
We need the power of the Holy Spirit
to come upon us, if we are to
become an for the Lord.
So that's the message of chapter 37.
Chapter 38 and 39 deal with the enemies
of Israel in the north of Israel, Gog
and Magog, who are going to attack Israel
and who are finally going to be defeated.
It has a reference to the last days.
And chapter 40 to 48 is a picture,
I believe, of the new covenant church.
He describes it as a temple with all
types of details.
And I want you to notice chapter 43
especially.
Chapter 43, we read, the glory of the
Lord which went away, verse 5, came back.
It's a picture of the new covenant church
that God began to establish from the day
of Pentecost onwards.
And the Lord says, verse 7, this is
the place of my throne.
Today the place of God's throne is this
new covenant church.
The glory of God has come back.
Verse 2.
And I want you to notice something here.
There is a law, one law for this
new covenant church.
Verse 12.
This is the basic law of this temple,
this new temple.
Absolute holiness.
The entire top of the hill where the
temple is has to be holy.
This is the primary law of the temple.
So what do we see here?
The glory of God coming and the spirit
of God taking Ezekiel up and the glory
of God, verse 5, filling the temple and
holiness.
That's why the Holy Spirit is called Holy
Spirit.
Now if we follow this rule, this basic
law, we can build a church.
Not otherwise.
If you're only interested in gathering people, you
will get converts.
You won't build a church.
You won't build the body of Christ.
If you want to build a church as
a body of Christ, there's one fundamental law,
absolute holiness.
For every person in the church, the standard
is the same.
And that was the burden of the prophets.
And from such a church, we read in
chapter 47, a river begins to flow.
This is the passage where Jesus quoted in
John chapter 7, when he spoke about rivers
of living water flowing out.
Rivers of living water flow out from this
new covenant temple.
It starts as a little trickle and finally
becomes a big river.
And the Lord gives him, Ezekiel, a little
taste of what it means to live a
spirit-filled life.
Notice that in the first few verses.
It says, as he went in, he led
him along for about 1,750 feet and
this water came up to his ankles.
Then he measured a little more distance.
The water came up to his knees, verse
4.
And then a little more distance and the
water came up to his waist.
And then a little more distance.
And then he had to swim.
Now notice this.
This is a picture of the spirit-filled
life.
Some people like, you know, the Lord told
Elijah, Elijah told Elijah, stay here.
Are you happy?
He said, no, I want more.
I want more.
It's the same picture here in Ezekiel.
Are you happy with this much?
Ezekiel says, no, I want more.
Okay.
The Lord leads him further.
Are you happy with this much?
No, I want more.
And finally, he comes to waters to swim
in.
Notice one difference.
When the water is up to your knee,
up to your ankles, you're still standing on
ground.
When it's up to your knees, you're still
standing on the ground.
When it's up to your waist, you're still
standing on the ground.
You can have a measure of the Holy
Spirit into a certain extent in your life,
and still your whole mind is set on
the ground, on earthly things.
But the real fullness of the Spirit is
where your feet are taken off the earth,
where you're lifted from earthly things, and now
you have to swim.
You're led by the Spirit.
The mark of a Spirit-filled man, truly
Spirit-filled man, is his feet are not
on the earth.
He is not attached to earthly things.
One last word, chapter 48, verse 35.
The name of this new covenant church is,
the Lord is there.
Jehovah Shammah.
This is the church you and I are
called to build, but it begins when you
and I become people like Ezekiel.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, help us to be the type
of servants that you want us to be
in this day and this age, in our
land, for your glory.
We humbly ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.