Ezekiel 1–3

0:00 I want you to picture a city on fire. I want you to see the flames. I want you to smell the smoke. Watch the black clouds of smoke rise up into the air. I want you to hear the screams of people as they run through the cities. A mother dragging her little child behind her. And I want you to see the walls of this ancient city crumbled to the ground in one spot. And soldiers pouring in over the walls, sticking their swords in anything that moves. killing anything that lives. It's 586 BC, and the Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar has all of a sudden broken through the walls of Jerusalem. Soldiers are in the streets, flags are flying, the palace where the king lived is burning, and all of a sudden a detachment of soldiers at the king's command heads straight for the temple of God, the place where it's been known for centuries

1:01 that God has made his dwelling place. They march up to the temple, kicking anything and everything and everybody out of their way as they go. They kick in the doors of the temple and they start loading everything they can find onto carts. Gold lampstands, bronze pillars, basins, altars, implements that are used for the worship of God, all of it gets loaded onto a cart that's drawn by a donkey or a horse, and it's hauled away. That's what conquering armies did in the ancient world.

1:35 When you defeated a nation, you didn't just go take the king, you didn't just go take the seat of government. When you broke through the walls and you got everybody out of the way, the first thing you did is that you went straight to that nation's God's house, and you took everything. You went into the center of the temple and you found the statue of the God that was almost always there. And you carried their God away as a trophy. And then when you got home, back to Babylon in this case, you took that trophy of that defeated God and you put the trophy God on his face before your God, Marduk.

2:12 Where the God would worship Marduk as he was always meant to worship him forever. Everybody understood what that meant. If your nation got defeated and your capital city got taken and your God was carted off to worship Marduk or Carchemish or whoever it was that defeated him, everybody knew what that meant. Your God lost. The war is over. This God that you, your parents, your grandparents, all your ancestors worshipped, maybe for centuries, your God had been conquered.

2:46 That's what happened in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians broke down the walls of Jerusalem. Now, the Israelites in the temple of God, as is well known, didn't have a statue of Yahweh for the Babylonians to carry off. In fact, when they broke into the temple and went into the Holy of Holies, it was probably a bit of a shock to them. Because every other nation that they'd ever conquered had some statue of their God sitting there. They break into the Holy of Holies in the temple and there's nothing but a golden box. It would have been somewhat surprising to them. But everything else, everything visible, everything tangible that said God is with this people was all of a sudden just gone.

3:20 The temple was broken down to rubble so that not one stone was left on another. The throne of David was all of a sudden empty and destroyed. The land that God promised Abraham was gone, taken by this foreign invading army. And then the people themselves, to make it even worse, his people who had been in covenant with God since the days of Abraham were marched 800 miles east or actually north and then east and then south into the city of Babylon and settled next to a canal in the middle of nowhere. And as they settled into their new homes, not knowing what was going to happen, not knowing if they would die in this foreign land, there was a question that was hanging over every single one of them. It was the question that the Babylonians were asking too, though with laugh and with mockery. It was, has Yahweh lost? Is he just another defeated God?

4:18 Babylonians would walk through their little settlement and laugh at them, chuckle, and say, yeah, the answer to all those questions is yes. Yahweh's conquered. You didn't even have a statue, but if you did, that statue would be on its face in the temple of Marduk, worshiping our God. That's where you would be if you even had a statue. Your God has been defeated. That's heavy stuff, isn't it? But that's where the book of Ezekiel opens. We're going to be starting today a fairly short series in the book of Ezekiel.

4:52 And you'll pick up really quickly, like as soon as we start reading it, that it is an extraordinary and deeply weird book. Almost every chapter in Ezekiel, if you've ever looked at it, has weirdness beyond compare. Now, prophets have a reputation for being weird at times. They say weird stuff. They do weird stuff. Nobody says and does weird stuff like Ezekiel says and does weird stuff. He's like the father of weird stuff. And we're going to get to some of that. We're going to see some of the things he saw that were weird today. We're going to start seeing the things he does that are weird starting next week.

5:24 This book is full of some of the most strange and perplexing images in the entire Bible. it's also home to some of the most beloved passages. So if maybe you took a little time to read on through the whole rest of the book, eventually you're gonna come to chapter 37, which has been the subject of a billion sermons, right? The Valley of the Dry Bones, where God takes this pile of dry bones in the middle of a valley and brings them to life and they stand up and it's this wonderful picture of God giving life to his dead people. There are all kinds of things in this book like that, that when you read them, you're gonna think, oh, I've heard that before.

5:58 But it's also got some of the most disturbing images in the entire Bible. And if you've gotten to chapters, you know, 30, 17, 33, 34, some of those chapters, then you'll know it's got some extremely disturbing imagery. It's a book, essentially, that has two messages. And they come one right after the other. First, in the first half of the book, from, say, chapters 1 through 24, you get just crushing judgment against the people of Israel, even the exiled people of Israel, right? Because what Ezekiel's doing in the first 24 chapters of the book is warning these exiled people.

6:33 You guys may think it's over. You may think the worst had come when Babylon dragged you from Jerusalem over here across the desert and settled you here next to this canal in the middle of nowhere. You may think that was the worst of it. It's not. There's a whole lot more coming. And for 24 chapters, he just hammers them with these crushing judgments, one right after the other. But then, starting in chapter 33, you get one of the brightest visions of hope in all of Scripture. It's just absolutely beautiful. Like even the Dead Sea comes to life and blooms where nothing had ever lived before.

7:06 All of a sudden, the Dead Sea becomes teeming with life because of what God has done. Well, before we get into all the details, let me just give you a few minutes about the man, Ezekiel, and the world in which he was living. So in about 600 BC, so if you think about it, we're like 2,000 years after Jesus, right? Well, 600 BC is 600 years before Christ or before Jesus. So it's a long time ago, 2,600 years or so ago. The little tiny nation of Israel was conquered by the rising Babylonian Empire.

7:42 The whole story of the ancient Near East is one huge empire rising after another, right? So you have Egypt at one point, and then Assyria comes in, conquers Egypt, and then Assyria loses a battle to Babylon, and Babylon is the ascendant power, and then you're going to get Persia later, and then the Greeks, and then the Romans. It's just one big empire after another. And the place where Ezekiel finds himself living is in the movement from the Assyrian empire to the Babylonian empire. So about 2,600 years ago, this tiny little nation of Israel, which had kind of been caught in the middle of all this imperial stuff, it was finally conquered.

8:18 By the rising Babylonian empire. Ezekiel was one of the first group of people to be carried away into exile. Because when the Babylonians conquered Israel, they first took all of the men and women of note and got them out of the city. They took away the leadership. They took away the priesthood. They took away the royal court. All of it was carried off to Babylon. And Ezekiel, because he was about to enter into the priesthood, he was just about to come of age and enter the priesthood, he was one of the first people to be carted off into exile. Ezekiel, at the time of his writing, or at least at the time of the beginning of the book, he's a young guy.

8:52 He's only about 25 years old at the time this book starts being written. So, you know, I know we tend to think of prophets as these wizened old dudes with long gray beards. It's impossible that Ezekiel had a long gray beard. He probably couldn't even, you know, have any stubble on his chin yet. He's literally a young man who hasn't even started his job because he's about to enter into the priesthood. He's of a priestly tribe, a priestly family, and so it was just understood of him that when you come of age, at about 25, you're going to enter into the priesthood. And now, just as he's looking at that honor, he's thinking he's going to be a priest, he gets captured by the Babylonians and displaced from his homeland and taken off into the middle of nowhere.

9:34 So, it's a bad deal for Ezekiel. I mean, he's a young man, he's got his whole life before him, and he's not only taken away from his homeland, he also loses his whole purpose in life. I mean, at best, he's the priest of a God who doesn't even, he's wondering, reign in the land that he's in. He's supposed to serve a God who apparently doesn't even sit on the throne here. The book of Ezekiel is organized neatly around one gigantic event.

10:08 So you've got this whole book, all the chapters, all the visions, all of it. But there's one thing that happens right in the middle of it that organizes the entire book. And that is the ultimate fall of Jerusalem. So Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Israel took place in two stages. He literally did it twice. So he sends an army across in about 600 A.D. He conquers the nation, but he doesn't destroy the city. He just takes all of its leaders, including Ezekiel, away, but he leaves them. They have a puppet king. He's under the thumb of Nebuchadnezzar, but nothing is destroyed at that point.

10:41 He's giving them a chance. Well, in 586 A.D. B.C., in 586 B.C., that puppet king decides to try to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar is like, that's it. That's enough. So he sends his army again over the top of the desert, and they invade Israel a second time. And at that point, that's when they destroy everything. They tear down the temple, they burn the palaces, they absolutely destroy the city, knock down its entire city walls so that it can never defend itself again against an invading army.

11:11 And it's that second invasion when he destroys everything, that's what happens right at the center of the book. Now how does it work? Well, it happens in Ezekiel 24 verse 1. That's when the ultimate fall of Jerusalem happens. So what you get all the way up to chapter 24, verse 1, is just this unbroken series of judgment oracles against the nation of Israel. It's Ezekiel saying, this is not over. It's going to get worse. And for 23 chapters, you've got unbroken warnings and judgments against the Israelites.

11:47 Well, at the beginning of chapter 24, it happens. Nebuchadnezzar invades, lays siege to the city, and destroys it. Now, here's the interesting thing that happens with the book. The interesting thing is that when it happens in Ezekiel 24.1, when the city falls, there's no way for Ezekiel to know that that's happened. I mean, this dude is 800 miles away across the desert. There's no CNN, right? It takes months for a messenger to make his way back. So in 24.1, when it happens, there's no way for Ezekiel to know it, and yet he knows it. He knows that it's happened because God tells him that it's happened.

12:21 Now, here's the just fascinating thing about it. God tells him that it's happened, and at the exact same moment, there is a little dude in the story that's known as just the fugitive. That's all he's known as. He's a fugitive, and he escapes the carnage in Jerusalem. He gets out of the city, and he heads over across the desert in order to get to the people of God in Babylon to tell them that their city has fallen. But it takes him something like six or eight or maybe even we're not exactly sure maybe even an entire year to make his way alone all the way over the desert and down to Babylon to tell them well he arrives in chapter 33 and he says the deed is done Jerusalem has been destroyed and as soon as he arrives there's a little bit of like continued judgment and it's almost like Ezekiel doesn't hear him and then he kind of, you know, middle of chapter 33 or so, he goes, wait, what? And so, but then as soon as he hears the message that the judgment is done, Jerusalem has been destroyed, the tenor of the

13:23 book changes completely. All of a sudden, it's not judgment anymore. It is like the brakes go on as soon as the judgment is done, and the whole tenor of the book changes into joy and promise and hope. So 24, it happens, 33, the fugitive arrives, and the whole book changes into joy and hope. What happens between 24 and 33, though? Well, again, it's super interesting, because while this fugitive is making his way through the various nations of the world, from Jerusalem all the way over to Babylon, you know what's happening?

13:59 The camera, so to speak, of the book has panned out from the destruction of Jerusalem, and it follows this fugitive as he makes his way through these nations, and oracles from God begin to fall on each nation that he passes through. All the nations of the world that are mocking Jerusalem's fall, that are mocking the people of God, all of them have an oracle pronounced against them by God. They're all going to be destroyed, and God's people are the ones who are going to live. See, it's just an extraordinary book, and there's a drama in it that if you don't, once you do see it, you're never going to forget it.

14:37 But if you've never seen it, the book can just look like this crazy grab bag of stuff, but it's not. There's a drama that unfolds in it. 23 chapters of judgment, then the fugitive escapes as the city falls. You get oracles of judgment as he makes his way to Babylon, and then once the word is given to the people of God, it all becomes hope and salvation and joy. Incredible book. Well, we're not going to look at all of it today. We're going to be looking at three chapters of this book today. You know, ultimately, this is a book that is written to exiles and strangers.

15:12 People who are living in a place that is not their home. I wonder if that, even now, sounds familiar to you. I wonder if it sounds just a little bit familiar that a book is being written to exiles and strangers. Because that's exactly what the apostles called us as Christians. exiles and strangers. So for as weird as this book is, as weird as the images are, as weird as it all is, this book is written for us and for our edification. It teaches us how to trust God when we are not home. And it all begins here in chapters one through three. We're not going to read the whole thing. It's just a little too long to read the whole thing, but I do want to read some of this just extraordinary vision that Ezekiel has of God. I'm not even sure, is it a vision? Is it reality? What is it? It's not exactly clear, but I do want you to read it because it's just absolutely extraordinary. So look with me at Ezekiel chapter 1, verse 1. Here's what he says.

16:13 In the 13th year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Kibar Canal, that's near Babylon, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month, it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Butzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Kibar Canal, Chaldeans are Babylonians, same people, in the land of the Babylonians by the Kibar Canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there. As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming metal.

16:54 And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance. They had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot. And they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings, and on their four sides, they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus. Their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward without turning as they went. And as for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four also had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left, and the four had the face of an eagle.

17:27 Such were their faces, and their wings were spread out above. Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies, and each went straight forward. Whenever the spirit would go, they went without turning as they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches moving to and fro among the living creatures, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures darted to and fro like the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now, as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures.

18:00 One for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction, their appearance was like the gleaming of barrel. And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went. Their rims were tall and awesome. And the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. And when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

18:31 When those went, these went. And when those stood, these stood. And when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. Over the heads of the living creatures, there was a likeness of an expanse, shining like an awe-inspiring crystal spread out above their heads. And under the expanse, their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another. Each creature had two wings covering its body. And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult, like the sound of an army. And when they stood still, they let down their wings.

19:03 And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads. And when they stood still, they let down their wings. Above the expanse over their heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance like sapphire. And seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist, I saw as it were gleaming metal like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist, I saw as it were the appearance of fire and there was brightness around him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around.

19:37 Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. Now, that is just a mind-blowing vision, isn't it? I mean, the details are just bewildering. It's like a kaleidoscope when you look at it. None of it quite makes sense. It's full of puzzles, imagery, symbolism. But I think what it's doing above all, beyond all the details, beyond all the weirdness of it, it's encouraging these exiles.

20:12 And therefore, it's encouraging us. And what it's encouraging us with is this. This is the main idea at long last. We are hard-pressed on every side. We are hard-pressed on every side. And we are not home. But God still reigns and God still speaks. We are not home. We're hard-pressed on every side. But God still reigns and God still speaks. Those are the two points of the rest of this sermon.

20:45 We're going to be looking first at the vision of chapter 1, and then we're going to look at Ezekiel's commissioning in chapters 2 and 3. So point number 1, looking at this vision in chapter 1, no matter what, God still reigns. And then number 2, no matter what, God still speaks. So let's jump into some of the details now that we've got a feel for the book as a whole. So number 1, looking at chapter 1, no matter what happens, God still reigns. Now, before we get into the details of the vision, you really need to feel a little bit more deeply what exile meant to these people.

21:19 Because it wasn't just that they happened to be living somewhere other than they would prefer. That's not what exile meant. We are a very transient society, right? We all move all over the country and all over the world all the time. Like, you know, I've lived in Texas, and I've lived in Washington, D.C., and I've lived in Connecticut, and now I live in Kentucky. And a lot of you have similar kinds of stories. We move a lot. That's not how it worked in the ancient world. In the ancient world, if you were born in a particular room, many, many people would go a lifetime without ever getting one mile from the room in which they were born.

21:53 The land was who you were. The land was your family. The land was your ancestors. So to be carted off 800 miles across a desert to another place wasn't just a move. It's not just a relocation. Your entire world has caved in. One writer described it like this. She said, exile. It is not simply being homeless. Rather, it is knowing that you do have a home.

22:24 But that your home has been taken over by enemies. Exile. It's not being without roots. No, it's having deep roots, which have now been plucked up. And there you are with roots dangling, writhing in pain, exposed to a cold and jeering world, longing to be restored to native and nurturing soil. Exile is knowing precisely where you belong, but knowing that you can't go back.

22:58 That's where Ezekiel is. Everything that told him God was real, Everything that told him God was with his people was for his people. All of it was gone. The promised land was gone. The temple was destroyed. The Davidic throne and dynasty was gone. His own priesthood, gone. And the question that's pressing on him is the same one pressing on all of them. Is God actually here? Is he here with us in Babylon or did we leave him behind in Jerusalem? I mean, worse, did he maybe just get defeated by Marduk, the Babylonian god?

23:30 Is that what's just happened? Well, chapter 1 opens with Ezekiel out by the Kibar Canal one day. He dates the whole thing really carefully in verses 1 to 3 because he knows that this is a significant thing. So he really has it dated according to two things. The first way that he dates it is that he says that he is about 30 years old, something like that. And it's the fifth year also, he says, of the exile itself, or the fifth month, I think it is. No, the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin. So that's how he dates the whole thing, because it's important.

24:04 And he looks up on this particular day as he's out by the Kibar Canal, and he looks to the north and he sees a storm that's brewing out in the north. Now, why north? I mean, think about it. Why does he see this whole thing coming out of the north? Why that direction? Why is that significant? I mean, think about my hand motion every single time we've done this, right? If you're in Babylon, if help, if an invading army of some kind is going to come from Jerusalem to rescue you, which direction is it going to come from? You're going to see it coming from the north because it has to go up and around through Syria and then down to Babylon.

24:36 You can't go straight across the desert, you'll die. But the army is going to come from the north. So when Ezekiel sees this vision coming out of the north, he knows that something is coming from home. What is he watching as the storm gets brighter and more intense, more spectacular than anything he's ever seen. It's just, it's utterly mind-blowing. And then out of the storm come these absolutely incredible things. Now, you could probably tell as I was reading it a few minutes ago that it's just clear that words fail Ezekiel.

25:10 He just cannot describe what he's seeing. He gets a little better at it by chapter 10 when he has to describe the whole thing again. So he's kind of, you know, settled down a little bit and he sort of, you know, he puts it together a little bit better. But here he's just fumbling over his words. It's just full of phrases like, seems like, the appearance of, as it were, what looked like. Remember that? It's just everywhere. And sometimes it piles up. It's like, you know, the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the, you know, it's just, I don't know what I'm seeing here. That's what he's saying.

25:42 Now, that's important. All those phrases piling up where Ezekiel's telling you over and over again, I have no idea what I'm trying to describe here. it's important because people throughout history have not paid enough attention to the fact that Ezekiel can't really describe it. And so they've tried to draw what he's seeing, or they try to build what he's seeing. But that's the whole point. Ezekiel's not trying to give you blueprints to build this thing. You can't even really imagine it. And the whole thing is more, way more M.C. Escher than it is mechanical engineering. It's strange. But I think, too, that shouldn't surprise very much because what Ezekiel is seeing here is the throne of the God of the universe and that friends should not be something that your grandpa can build out in his shop.

26:30 First thing he sees these four creatures coming out of the storm each one of them has four faces a human a lion an ox and an eagle why those animals? Well if you were here when we studied Revelation you get another picture of these of these cherubim we know from chapter 10 that that's what they are. You get another picture of them, and you know that the human, the lion, the ox, and the eagle are all the sort of greatest of the various kinds of living things, right? So the lion is the king of the jungle. The ox is the sort of king and strongest of the domesticated farm and work animals. The eagle would be the greatest and strongest of the birds. And then you've got the human, who in Genesis chapter 1 is put on the top of all of it as reigning over all these great animals right so what you have here in these cherubim what you have here in these in these creatures is basically a representation of the whole structure of creation worshiping and honoring god that's what you have there you can see in there that there's fire in the midst of them

27:35 their wings are outstretched and and touching and it's an interesting detail right that when they stretch out their wings it's there are no gaps right between the wings of the creatures they they touch tip to tip. What is that? Well, we don't exactly know, but it looks like they're moving forward. When the thing moves forward, they move forward in front of it, and it seems to be a kind of, you know, barrier, honor guard, sort of, for the God of the universe. That's what these cherubs seem to be doing. You ever heard the word cherub? It's an interesting word, right? It shows up a few times in the Bible. I mean, we see these guys in Isaiah. We see them in Ezekiel. We see them in Daniel. And we see them in Revelation. That's where they show up. So they don't seem to be just an apparition, right? They're not just a figment of Ezekiel's imagination. These things exist, right? And what I want you to understand is that if you've ever heard the word cherub, you probably have this image in your mind of the little, like, fat-faced babies on your mom's Christmas mantle, right?

28:34 And you just need a little cherry, right? These dudes are not fat-faced babies. These guys are terrifying guardians of the throne of God. They are ensuring that nothing unholy enters God's presence. That's what they do. Then you look down at verses 15 to 21. Ezekiel describes these wheels beside these creatures. Now that's probably the strangest part of the vision because you can't even really tell what he's talking about.

29:06 He says they're tall and awesome. They're made of beryl or at least appear. He says it's got the appearance of the likeness of beryl or something. Beryl would have been like a sort of ghostly green stone if you can think of it like a whiter color of jade maybe. That's kind of what beryl was. He says that the outer edges of these things are covered with eyes. But for all those details, here's why the wheels matter. The wheels, whatever they are, whatever they look like, they tell you what this thing is. You see it?

29:38 So you got the creatures, you got the wheels, there are four of them. Remember, one for each creature. So creatures, wheels, four of them. Then you have an expanse, right? A platform on top of all of that. A throne on the platform and a guy, God, sitting on the throne. What is this thing? As you put it together in your mind. It's a throne chariot. That's what it is. I mean, when you just kind of blur out the details a little bit and just look at what you got there, a platform on top of four wheels, a throne on the platform, a guy sitting on the throne, it's a throne chariot.

30:12 It's an invasion chariot. And that image would have been incredibly encouraging to these exiles. Because what was the fear? The fear was that God was somehow stuck in Jerusalem. That he was just one more little provincial deity, just like all the other provincial deities. But when the people of God are in Babylon now, God can't come. The fear was that his throne, so to speak, was bolted to the floor in Jerusalem.

30:42 And that's where he had to stay. But it's incredible, isn't it? Because what he's teaching his people right here is, uh-uh-uh, my throne isn't bolted. My throne has wheels. My throne goes wherever I want to go because I am the God of the universe and I reign everywhere. I mean, keep going. Ezekiel's eyes keep going up. Look at verse 26. Above the creatures and the wheels, you've got this shimmering platform like ice.

31:13 And on top of it, there's a throne that's made of sapphire. Now, this isn't the sapphire that some of you have around your necks that's clear and, you know, shiny. It's not that kind of sapphire. It's another kind of blue stone called lapis lazuli. If you've ever seen it, it's this deep blue stone, but it's opaque. It's not a gem, exactly. But it was also the foundation of the economic wealth of both the Assyrian Empire and the Babylonian Empire. It was like the most expensive thing that you could get, lapis lazuli. And now here's God saying, you know how expensive that stuff is to me?

31:44 My throne is made of the stuff. I sit on it. That's how powerful your economics are, Babylon. That's how great your God is, who has lapis lazuli for his eyes in his little statue. I have lapis lazuli for my throne. On top of all that, you've got this blindingly bright figure seated on the throne. His whole body shining like fire.

32:19 And when Ezekiel looks at him at the very end of the chapter, you can see that his mind is just blown. Because you really get four different levels of this appearance likeness thing. I mean, look at that. The very last sentence. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. He's not willing to say, that's the glory of the Lord. He's not even willing to say, that's the likeness of the glory of the Lord. He's just stuck with, that's the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. That's all he's willing to say. look, here's what matters. Everything Ezekiel believed about God had been called into question by the exile. Is Yahweh just this tribal deity? Is he just bound to the land of Israel like other ancient gods were bound to their lands? Has he been defeated by Babylon's God? And in this vision, God explodes all those questions with a universally resounding no. God is not bound. He's not bolted down, he still reigns. Even here on the edge of this miserable canal in Babylon, he sits on the

33:22 throne and he reigns. Now that may seem, especially if you've been a Christian for very long, that may seem to you like a fairly obvious truth. But I want you to think about a couple of things. One, that is only an obvious truth to you because God revealed it right here. If you didn't have this vision and if you didn't have the rest of the Bible unfolding it and using that truth to say it again and again and again, you'd still have provincial ideas of God.

33:56 He only reigns here in Louisville. He only reigns here in Kentucky, but there are other gods elsewhere. That's a simple truth to you because God revealed it to you. It's also a truth, I think, for all its obviousness, that we, even as Christians, tend to leave sitting on the shelf. It's a shelf doctrine. In other words, we know that it's true, but we don't tend to use it very much. I mean, the fact is, just like those Israelites on the edge of that miserable canal, we are aliens and strangers in the world.

34:31 That's what Peter says about us. Just like they were aliens and strangers 800 miles away from their home. We are aliens and strangers in this world. And living in that kind of situation with your roots plucked up can easily create a sense of instability in your life. Of restlessness, even of fear. And so the question becomes how do we as Christians continue for decades to live faithfully in a world that isn't our home? How exactly do we keep going when victories, even in the Christian life, can be really hard to come by?

35:09 And even when you get it right, the right living as a Christian doesn't always lead to success. How do you live in that kind of world? And let's be honest, most of us aren't right now living the victorious Christian life. For most of us, it's an achievement every day to just live the surviving Christian life. So how do you live in that kind of world? Well, friends, what sets all that restlessness to rest, what gives confidence even in the hardest and darkest moments of our lives is this.

35:47 Even so, our God reigns. Even so, our God reigns. He reigns over the seasons when we know deep down in our heart that we're in exile. He reigns over that child that's rebelling. He reigns over that diagnosis that was given to you. He reigns over that job that you hate. And he reigns even over a world that feels less and less like home to his people. Look what this vision is telling us about how all that works.

36:20 God doesn't appear back in Jerusalem one day and say, hey, hey, you exiles, come back. You know, when you get it together, I'll be here in Jerusalem. you guys come when you're ready. No, no, no, no, no. He shows up there in Babylon on a throne with wheels, a throne that moves because he reigns over all of it. His reign isn't tied to any temple, any land, any piece of real estate, any country. That was true for them, and it's also true for us.

36:54 Look, we may love our country. Most of us in here are Americans. There are a few Brits and other people, lots of different countries represented here. And we may love our countries. It's probably right for us to love certain aspects of our countries. But our one true king's throne has wheels. It isn't bolted to any one nation or any one culture. Our ultimate home is not here. It's not in any earthly place, however good.

37:27 So what's the answer to it all? It's to know that even here, in a place that is not our home, God reigns. He reigns over the exile itself until he decides to come and bring us home. Friends, let that truth not just be a shelf doctrine in your life. Let it be active. Remind yourself of it. Take confidence from it. God yet reigns. And number two, no matter what, God still speaks.

37:59 God still speaks. That's the message of chapters two and three. He doesn't just sit on his throne in silence. In other words, the vision, if you look at it, at the very end of chapter one, ends on just a wild note. So look with me down at verse 28 of chapter one. You get all this visual spectacle, right? And even for most of verse 28, what you've got is visual spectacle. It's things that Ezekiel is seeing and trying to describe. He says, like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness all around.

38:32 Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face. And then what's the great climax of the whole thing? I heard the voice of one speaking. I heard the voice of one speaking. It's not another explosion of light and laser for him to see. He turns his eyes away from the spectacle, and then he hears the voice of God. Now, that's surprising to us, I think. It's surprising to us as human beings because we would expect that the climax of this story would be something visual because that's what we've been trained by.

39:12 First you get the voice, then you get the lights, right? You ever been to a concert? And that's what they do to you, right? You have low light flashing on the stage. And then ladies and gentlemen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then what's the big climax? They turn on the lights and the lasers and you see and it blows your mind. Not here. Not here. Here, the video leads to the audio. Why? Why? Because the thing that sets the God of the Bible apart from every other false God is that our God talks.

39:50 He talks, he speaks, he reveals, he tells us about himself, which is something no other God does. You know, there's a place in Isaiah where God literally makes fun of the other gods. He mocks them for being false. And you know what he says over and over again? He says, say something. You little chiseled out piece of wood, say something. Tell us what happened before. Tell us what's going to happen in the future. Tell us anything. You can't because you can't speak because you're nothing.

40:25 But our God speaks. And what he says to Ezekiel in chapters 2 and 3 is what we're going to look at now. First, I want you to see. I've got three things that I want you to see out of these couple of chapters. First, I want you to see that God speaks even to a hard-hearted people. God speaks even to people who are hard-hearted. So look at the paragraph from chapter 2, runs through verses 1 to 7. God tells Ezekiel basically right up front here, I am sending you to a rebellious house that is not going to listen to you.

41:02 They are hard-hearted. He calls them all kinds of things. They are impudent and stubborn, he says. Over and over you get this word, rebellious, rebellious, rebellious. And then if you look in chapter 3, verses 5 to 7, he twists the knife even deeper. He says to Ezekiel, hey, man, if I sent you to a foreign nation, if I sent you to a place where you literally don't even speak their language, those people would listen to you. But not Israel, not my people. Their hearts are harder than pagans.

41:38 And yet, look at chapter 2, verse 7. In spite of all this, in spite of the fact that they are not going to listen to you, speak my words to them. Speak my words to them, despite their hard-heartedness, whether they hear or whether they refuse to hear. Speak to them anyway. Speak to them anyway. See, God knows that they're not going to listen. but he sends his word to them regardless.

42:10 Do you know what that is? Do you know what it is when God says, I know they're not going to listen to me, but I'm going to speak my words to them anyway. Do you understand what that is? It's grace. It's something that we and you don't deserve to hear from God even when your heart is hard. The very sound of his voice is mercy to you. Look, if you're here in this room listening to what I'm saying or even just halfway listening to what I'm saying, That is God's grace to you. It is God's grace to you to hear these words.

42:43 Because you know what would have been just and right for God to do to you, to me, to all of us? Silence. That's what would have been just and right. Silence from God in response to sin would have been justice. And you do realize that, right? I mean, you do realize that God could have at the moment the human race bit the apple, The moment Adam did that for all of us, it would have been perfectly righteous and just for God to speak judgment in Eden and then never say anything to the human race again.

43:18 The cherubim would have applauded him for that. But he didn't do that. He spoke again. And then he spoke again, and he spoke again, and again, and again, and again, all the way down to this. This right here is my beloved son. Listen to what he says. I wonder if you've done that. I wonder if you've seen what kind of grace it is for God to even say anything to you and then above all for him to send his son and say, listen to him.

43:58 Come to him for salvation. Have you listened to him? Friend, that's your only hope. Second, God speaks through a bound man. He speaks through a bound man. Look at chapter 2, verse 8, all the way down through chapter 3, verse 3. 2, 8 to 3, 3. You see there, God gives Ezekiel this scroll. It's just a book, right? What's unusual about it is not that it's a scroll. It's that it's been written on both sides.

44:29 You normally didn't do that with a scroll. It just made it really hard to read. but this one's written on both sides which means the message is full like there's no room for you Ezekiel to add anything else to it it's it's full and he makes Ezekiel eat it it tastes like honey and what's going on there is that Ezekiel is internalizing the word of God and then you look what happens later in chapter 3 22 to 27 God literally shuts Ezekiel in his house has him bound up with cords and takes away his power to talk. He says your tongue.

45:03 You're not going to be able to talk again except when you're speaking my words. You don't get to add to it, Ezekiel. It's written on both sides. You don't get to put your own thoughts into it. You say what I say. You know, that's what's happening when we gather together to sit under the preaching of the word. That's what's happening when we gather together to sit under the preaching of the word. That's what preaching is. If it's done right, when any one of us, the elders, other men, stand up here in this pulpit, we're not just giving you one guy's religious insight. Just one guy's opinion or perspective among a whole lot for you to kind of weigh and evaluate and then decide whether you agree with it or not. That's not really what it is. The reason I can say that is because what we say, as long as it is what this

46:03 says, then preaching done right is God's own word and the message of it being mediated through a constrained human being who's not free to just tell you what I think. I need to internalize what this says and give it to you. Some people have likened it to a preacher being a waiter at a restaurant, not the chef. It's not the waiter's job to take the food that the chef has put together and say, well, no, I don't think beef is right.

46:42 I think it's chicken. No, you don't do that. What you do is you take what the chef has made and you deliver it to the people for their enjoyment and pleasure and nourishment. Third, God speaks as a warning. But what he warns about is utterly surprising. He speaks as a warning, but what he actually warns about is just fascinating. Look with me at chapter 3, verses 16 to 21.

47:17 So he says there, at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the house of Israel. You're a watchman. You're a guard. You're a sentry on the wall of the city. Now, what does a watchman do? He looks out for threats, right? He's up in the tower of the city and he looks out, scans the horizon, and if he sees, you know, torches out there or campfires or soldiers or whatever it is, he turns around and either rings a bell or blows a horn or something, but he's got to wake the city up because there's a threat out there.

47:51 There's an enemy army that's marching on us and is coming to destroy us. That's what a watchman does, simple enough. But here's what's incredible about this passage. What is the threat that Ezekiel is supposed to warn the people about? What's the threat? What's the army that's approaching on the horizon that Ezekiel is supposed to blow the horn about? It's God. God himself is the danger. He's the one coming with a word of judgment to pass sentence on his own people.

48:25 And Ezekiel's job is to warn them that God is coming in judgment. Friends, I need you to hear this, especially if you're not a Christian today. You need to know this God with whom you deal. You need to know who this God is that you're facing. The God of the universe is not a beggar standing at the door of your life and hoping you will invite him in. He's not asking nicely.

48:58 He's not presenting himself as just one option among many for you to consider at your leisure. I think I'll try Buddha this week and I think I'll try Muhammad this week. I think I'll try this. No, God is the army on the horizon. He is the threat that the watchman sees coming and is warning you about. And friend, if you have somehow been treating this God like he's the one who needs something from you, if you've been treating him like you're doing him a favor by showing up here on Sundays, And friend, you have profoundly misread the situation.

49:36 You're not being courted by the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are being warned. And you know what you're being warned about? You're being warned that you're a sinner, that you're a rebel against God and that judgment is coming. And there is one way out of it. There is one way for you to escape judgment And that's by going to King Jesus and taking the mercy that he offers. Safest place to stand in a fire is the place where the fire has already burned.

50:14 And you know where the fire of God's judgment has already burned? On Jesus, when he died on the cross. You want to escape God's judgment? You want to hear this warning finally and escape the judgment? to jesus go to where the wrath has already fallen and will never fall again well think back think back now to all those conquered gods on their donkey drawn carts Nebuchadnezzar's armies had done that a hundred times.

50:59 And that's what they expected to do to Yahweh. They expected the God of Israel to be dragged away like all the others. Defeated, done, just another trophy on its face in Marduk's temple. And for five years, for five years, the exiles sat by that canal, wondering if maybe that was true. But what Ezekiel saw, what Ezekiel saw on that one day wasn't a defeated God on a Babylonian horse cart.

51:30 It was a God who arrived on his own throne with wheels. Because no temple, no empire, no exile, no human objection can contain him. Now our God wasn't dragged anywhere. He wasn't dragged off to Babylon. He invaded it. And then he opened his mouth, because he still reigns, and he still speaks. Friends, listen to him.

52:05 Let's pray. Our God, we worship you, and we honor you, because you are the God who reigns above it all. All the things that we take to be most valuable in our lives, you build your throne out of them. And you sit on them. You're not constrained. You're not walled in. You're not bolted down. But Lord, you are with your people all over the world and throughout time.

52:40 Our God, we pray that you would cause our understanding of you to be made bigger and brighter because of what you showed Ezekiel and are now showing us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.