Latest / Faith by annm2705 / 824. Bible Study: Ezekiel 2 (Holy Spirit came into Ezekiel; The purpose: a message to the Israelites)

Transcript

824. Bible Study: Ezekiel 2 (Holy Spirit came into Ezekiel; The purpose: a message to the Israelites) · Faith by annm2705

• 0:00
  Yesterday when I started chapter 1, I completely forgot to start
• 0:05
  out with the introduction that's in the Study Bible because it's
• 0:10
  really helpful when you get to that.
• 0:12
  So I'm going to back up a bit and go into the introduction on
• 0:17
  Ezekiel and I did not read, I don't think I read any of the
• 0:22
  questions and answers that are in the Study Bible for chapter
• 0:27
  1. So I'm going to read those and
• 0:29
  then go into Charter 2, which is a really short 1 and read the
• 0:33
  questions and answers for that and then talk about Amir's book
• 0:36
  that we started yesterday. So OK, let's get started here
• 0:41
  with the introduction. It says, why read this book?
• 0:44
  Filled with bizarre visions and puzzling revelations, this book
• 0:49
  might intimidate you, but it shouldn't.
• 0:52
  If you dig beneath the surface, you will find timeless lessons
• 0:56
  about God and His relationship with you.
• 0:58
  He'd rather forgive you than judge you.
• 1:01
  He remains faithful even if you don't.
• 1:04
  He can use anything, even something bad, to accomplish His
• 1:08
  greater good. Who wrote this book and when was
• 1:12
  it written? Ezekiel, a member of a priestly
• 1:15
  family who had been taken captive from Jerusalem to
• 1:19
  Babylon in 597 BC. There he received prophetic
• 1:25
  visions that he recorded between 593 and 571 BC.
• 1:32
  So why and to whom was it written?
• 1:35
  Ezekiel wrote to the Israelites living in exile.
• 1:39
  They needed to know that the God of Israel was God.
• 1:44
  Even in Pagan Babylon, Ezekiel warned the people that their
• 1:49
  idolatry would be judged. Later, after Jerusalem's
• 1:54
  destruction, he wrote to encourage them that God would
• 1:57
  bring them back to Judah and Jerusalem.
• 2:01
  What was happening during this time?
• 2:03
  More than a century after Assyria conquered the northern
• 2:06
  Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, Babylon ascended on the world
• 2:12
  scene as the dominant power. Judah was defeated and captives
• 2:17
  were taken to Babylon in three stages in six O 5 BC, again 597
• 2:24
  BC, and again 586 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed.
• 2:31
  What to look for in Ezekiel? In addition to the breathtaking
• 2:35
  visions of Almighty God, look for four themes #1 warnings of
• 2:41
  judgment to come on unrepentant Jerusalem 2, the promise of
• 2:48
  judgment on other nations, 3 words of hope for Israel's
• 2:53
  future, for a vision of the new temple and renewed land.
• 3:00
  Throughout the book, watch for the message of God's majesty and
• 3:04
  glory. All this would happen.
• 3:06
  God said so that quote, they will know that I am the Lord.
• 3:14
  So that was the introduction, and then we read chapter 1.
• 3:17
  But here were the questions and answers for that chapter.
• 3:21
  I said, What does my 30th year represent?
• 3:24
  This refers to Ezekiel's 30th year of life, placing his birth
• 3:29
  in the year 623 BC. This detail is significant
• 3:33
  because he normally would have begun, He normally would have
• 3:37
  begun performing his priestly duties at the Temple in
• 3:41
  Jerusalem at age 30. Where was the Kibar Kibar river?
• 3:46
  The Kibar River was actually a large irrigation canal that took
• 3:50
  water from the Euphrates River, which was north of Babylon, and
• 3:56
  rejoined it South of the city of Urich.
• 3:59
  The canal's modern name is shot in Nil in southern Iraq.
• 4:05
  What were these visions of God? God revealed His will to Old
• 4:10
  Testament prophets in many ways. For example, prophetic words,
• 4:14
  parables, analogies, poetry, etcetera.
• 4:18
  In Ezekiel's case, God caused him to see vivid mental
• 4:23
  pictures, visions of what God was going to do.
• 4:28
  How was the hand of the Lord on Ezekiel?
• 4:31
  This expression describes God's Commission of Ezekiel as a
• 4:35
  prophet, one who speaks for God. It may also have indicated the
• 4:41
  presence of God's Spirit on Ezekiel.
• 4:45
  Why did Ezekiel see this bizarre vision?
• 4:49
  God probably intended these unearthly shapes and sounds to
• 4:53
  get Ezekiel's attention. Some have guessed at the
• 4:57
  underlying meanings. The intersecting wheels may have
• 5:00
  suggested that God was on the move.
• 5:02
  God's sovereign power was displayed in the vision from
• 5:08
  example God's throne. The vision seems bizarre only
• 5:12
  because it describes things far behind human experience.
• 5:17
  Ezekiel said it was the appearance of the likeness of
• 5:21
  the glory of the Lord. Did Ezekiel see a UFO?
• 5:27
  No. This depiction of ezekiel's
• 5:30
  vision is erratic because of his frame of mind, Ezekiel was
• 5:34
  overwhelmed with what he saw and though the language of wheels
• 5:38
  and creatures may sound like a description of a UFO, Ezekiel's
• 5:43
  vision and the imagery he used to describe have more to do with
• 5:47
  ancient Near Eastern context than with aliens.
• 5:52
  What special meaning did the four faces of the living
• 5:56
  creatures have most believe these creatures were cherubim.
• 6:00
  The four faces probably represent supremacy over the
• 6:04
  earth and air. Man declared ruler over
• 6:07
  creation, The Lion, King of the beast, the ox, the most
• 6:11
  powerful, the domesticated animals, the eagle, greatest of
• 6:15
  the birds. In other words, the greatest
• 6:18
  beings of this world are but beasts of burden to God.
• 6:22
  This is a marvelous image of God's glory and sovereignty.
• 6:28
  OK, so then we will get into chapter 2, which is not very
• 6:33
  long. There's only a a few different
• 6:36
  questions and answers. I'll read those first and then
• 6:38
  we'll start with the chapter. Why is Ezekiel called the Son of
• 6:42
  Man called Son of Man used some 90 times in the book of Ezekiel,
• 6:47
  This label underscores Ezekiel's humanity and his dependence on
• 6:52
  God's supernatural power. It may also have reminded
• 6:55
  Ezekiel that his job was to convey, not create, the message.
• 7:02
  How had Israel rebelled against God?
• 7:05
  The Israelites had a long history of being unfaithful to
• 7:09
  the Lord. Often they had followed the
• 7:11
  examples of their Pagan neighbors and worshipped idols.
• 7:14
  Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel, spent years warning the
• 7:19
  people to stop trusting in their human wisdom, power, and riches.
• 7:25
  What were these Breers, thorns and scorpions?
• 7:28
  They were the critics and enemies of of the exiled Jews in
• 7:34
  the land of Israel. Thorns and Breers grow quickly,
• 7:38
  choking out healthy growth. Jesus referred to them in the
• 7:41
  parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, verse 7.
• 7:45
  Scorpions crawl on the ground and wait, and walls stinging
• 7:50
  ferociously, sometimes fatally when threatened.
• 7:54
  Those who criticize the word of the Lord or Ezekiel had a
• 7:59
  similar effect. So this says chapter 2.
• 8:05
  He said to me, Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak
• 8:10
  to you. As he spoke, the Spirit came
• 8:14
  into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard Him speaking
• 8:19
  to me. He said, Son of Man, I am
• 8:23
  sending you to the Israelites to a rebellious nation that has
• 8:28
  rebelled against me, and their ancestors have been in revolt
• 8:33
  against me to this very day. The people whom I am sending you
• 8:36
  are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, this is what the
• 8:40
  Lord says. And whether they listen or fail
• 8:44
  to listen, for they are a rebellious people, they will
• 8:48
  know that a prophet has been among them.
• 8:50
  And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words.
• 8:55
  Do not be afraid, though Breers and Thorns are all around you
• 9:00
  and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they
• 9:05
  say or be terrified by them. Though they are a rebellious
• 9:09
  people. You must speak my words to them,
• 9:13
  whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.
• 9:19
  But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you.
• 9:22
  Do not rebel like the rebellious people.
• 9:26
  Open your mouth and eat what I give you.
• 9:29
  Then I looked, and there I saw a hand stretched out to me.
• 9:33
  It was a in. It was a scroll which he
• 9:38
  unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written
• 9:42
  words of lament and mourning and woe.
• 9:45
  And that ends Chapter 2. So I will also read the
• 9:51
  commentary that some of the things that I had underlined
• 9:55
  from Amir's book, because these were things that actually the,
• 10:03
  the first part of it, the first sentence or second sentence,
• 10:07
  second verse, as he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised
• 10:11
  me to my feet and I heard him speaking to me.
• 10:15
  That was from Scripture. So this is talking about the
• 10:19
  Holy Spirit entering the prophet.
• 10:22
  And quite honestly, it's been a long time for me to record this
• 10:28
  episode because I was researching the Spirit of God
• 10:31
  because here we are. We're in the Old Testament and I
• 10:36
  just find it very interesting how often the Holy Spirit was
• 10:41
  discussed in the Old Testament. But a lot of Christians, we just
• 10:47
  think about the Holy Spirit coming when, you know, after
• 10:53
  Jesus said told his disciples to wait and he would send the Holy
• 10:58
  Spirit to them and then they were to have their Commission to
• 11:02
  go out and and preach about the Kingdom of God.
• 11:07
  So anyway, that's that's what I always thought.
• 11:10
  But then when I read scripture in detail, you see all along
• 11:14
  where the Holy Spirit is and all the different things that the
• 11:18
  Holy Spirit does. So I actually went through the
• 11:22
  Bible, thank goodness for electronic versions of Bibles
• 11:26
  and just search the Spirit. You can do this yourself too.
• 11:30
  And I just, I used blueletterbible.org and there
• 11:36
  were I think 243 different verses and our times maybe that
• 11:44
  the Spirit was used. And so then I went through there
• 11:47
  and I was trying to just identify all the different
• 11:51
  things that the Spirit of God does within a person or when a
• 11:56
  person, when the Spirit comes upon a person.
• 12:00
  And so I thought that would be pretty interesting because it
• 12:03
  did make me question it when I was reading Ezekiel.
• 12:06
  Well, I think that's going to be way too long to talk about in
• 12:09
  this podcast. I'm going to probably have to do
• 12:11
  a separate podcast because as I look at what I did when I copied
• 12:18
  all of these verses, I have 21 pages of verses about the Holy
• 12:22
  Spirit. And so it's, I think that's
• 12:26
  going to be a separate, a completely separate podcast.
• 12:29
  So it's not too long, but it was very interesting and it's so
• 12:34
  insightful when you do like word searches in an electronic Bible
• 12:39
  and just find all the different areas.
• 12:42
  I, I just learned so much that way.
• 12:45
  Anyway, a few things that I think are really important that
• 12:50
  Amir put in his book was that points that he he saw that he
• 12:56
  observed when he read this was that look again at this is from
• 13:02
  Amir's book. Look again at Ezekiel's calling.
• 13:05
  He is told to speak to the children of Israel but nowhere
• 13:11
  is he told to convert them. Changing minds and lives is
• 13:17
  beyond Ezekiel's pay grade. So that is so true because it
• 13:24
  said verse 7 from Scripture says you must speak my words to them
• 13:29
  whether they listen or fail to listen for they are rebellions,
• 13:34
  rebellious. And that that's true.
• 13:38
  That's something I think a lot of Christians don't think about
• 13:42
  is that there may be an opportunity to speak with
• 13:47
  someone, but we are not required by God to convert a person to.
• 13:56
  I mean, there's no force in this.
• 13:59
  The only thing that anyone that's a Christian is supposed
• 14:03
  to at least let them know about it, inform people, and then
• 14:07
  people can make up their own minds about what they choose to
• 14:10
  do with that information afterwards.
• 14:12
  So anytime that Christianity is forced on someone that's not
• 14:17
  from God, that's not the way that God does it.
• 14:20
  And there are people that are out in the world that call
• 14:24
  themselves Christians and that in the past history and probably
• 14:28
  even today that, you know, may be forceful with it, but that's
• 14:32
  not the way God is. God has always made it, given us
• 14:37
  free will and let us choose how we want to respond to it.
• 14:43
  But the important thing is that everybody hears it.
• 14:46
  And so I think that's what God just, you know, once that's what
• 14:51
  he he was commissioning Ezekiel to specifically talk to the
• 14:57
  people of Israel. And it says it says his
• 15:03
  responsibility. This is Amir's book.
• 15:05
  His responsibility was to be faithful and speak the words of
• 15:10
  the Lord while leaving the results up to God.
• 15:14
  And I think that's very important information for us to
• 15:19
  think about. And, and then he also wrote this
• 15:22
  in his book. Nobody likes the prophet,
• 15:26
  especially not those who are who are enjoying their rebellion.
• 15:30
  So most of the time if there's someone who's speaking on behalf
• 15:34
  of God, a lot of times it's not going to be received well.
• 15:39
  Like I guess to some degree when when it's Kingdom focused and
• 15:44
  you talk about all the good that God has in store.
• 15:47
  But then when there's the talk about, yeah, everything, the big
• 15:53
  picture that when it makes people uncomfortable with their
• 15:57
  rebellion, people don't want to hear it.
• 16:01
  So anyway, the his book also said these are not a people who
• 16:05
  are ready to hear what God wants to say to them.
• 16:09
  And that can happen to a lot of people who are just talking
• 16:12
  about Jesus to people. They other people who hear it
• 16:16
  may not be ready for it. So he was supposed to go to his
• 16:21
  people. This was another insightful
• 16:25
  comment that he made. The prophet was quick to obey,
• 16:29
  taking the scroll and ingesting it.
• 16:32
  Despite the words on the scroll being extremely sour, the flavor
• 16:37
  was quote like honey in sweetness.
• 16:42
  It is possible that this is because God's justice seems
• 16:47
  harsh to the unrighteous but is pure and proper to the
• 16:52
  righteous. You know, until the Holy Spirit
• 16:55
  starts changing our minds or our thoughts.
• 16:59
  It's the Bible tells us that we are hostile to God, that we are
• 17:04
  we're in rebellion to God. And so we are not going to be in
• 17:09
  agreement with everything that the Bible says because because
• 17:14
  of our condition. But as the Holy Spirit begins to
• 17:19
  work with us and help us to understand and give us wisdom
• 17:23
  that we received through the Bible, then things start to
• 17:27
  change in people's lives. And that's happened to a lot of
• 17:30
  different people. It also mentioned about how
• 17:35
  Jeremiah had this task of being asked to preach to the
• 17:41
  rebellious people and and then he's he made a mention in the
• 17:49
  book of Jeremiah 5th chapter 15 verse 16 quote.
• 17:53
  Your words were found and I ate them and your word was to me the
• 17:59
  joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, O
• 18:05
  God of host. So and then there was another
• 18:09
  time too, where John in the Book of Revelation, he is also told
• 18:16
  to eat the scroll and he has a very similar description as
• 18:21
  Ezekiel did about the sweet and the sour taste.
• 18:25
  And but he was told to go to all nations.
• 18:30
  So Ezekiel's job was to speak to the people of Israel, but John's
• 18:35
  job was to speak to all nations. So that's what the difference
• 18:41
  was. But they essentially got the
• 18:43
  same message and symbolism that was shown to them.
• 18:47
  So it's really interesting that Ezekiel was that's, I guess
• 18:52
  that's coming up to about Ezekiel being carried away by
• 18:56
  the Holy Spirit. So when he has these visions,
• 19:01
  the question is, you know, was this the transport?
• 19:04
  Was this transportation back to the River Kibar, a physical
• 19:08
  transfer like Philip later experienced with the Ethiopian
• 19:11
  church, Ethiopian eunuch, I'm sorry, Acts, chapter 8, verse
• 19:17
  39. So that was, those were a few
• 19:22
  things that I highlighted from Amir's book.
• 19:24
  And that pretty much concludes chapter 2.
• 19:30
  And I will just end at that and maybe start talking about the
• 19:36
  the Holy Spirit and what I found in Scripture and do a separate
• 19:40
  podcast. And if somebody wants to listen
• 19:42
  to that, that you can listen to that later.
• 19:44
  I might do that tomorrow. So anyway, hope you have a great
• 19:48
  evening and come back for Chapter 3 and more from Ezekiel.