hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We are back on Wednesday and so we are jumping into a new book today. We're gonna be in the book of Ezekiel here in, in just a minute, but hopefully your week's going well. We are week two for a lot of people in school. So routines are kicking into gear classes that hadn't started or now started out full swing. I know my kid's taken some dual credit classes that are just starting this week, so that's always interesting to see how all that all shakes out. But, man, the last couple weeks have been fun, man. We've been seeing some good numbers at church. We've been seeing about 200 in, in our main service each week and 300 total with kids and volunteers involved. It's awesome. It's getting crowded though. Yeah, we're gonna have to do something about that pretty soon. Stay tuned to. Figure out what it is we're gonna do, because we're still thinking about that. We're still noodling on that one. Yeah. No we're grateful. We're glad for the people that that God's bringing to the church and visitors that are showing up too, that's a good thing. So yeah, our students are meeting tonight. Don't forget that if you've got students that are in middle school or high school ministry, they meet on Wednesday nights, six 30 to 8:00 PM And Lewis, who is our director of student ministry, he's been preaching through Romans and so he is still early on still, I think in chapter one. That's right. And so it's a, if you're new to the church or have, are just coming around, this is a perfect time to jump in. Not that there's a bad time to jump in, but he's still at the very beginning of the study of, I think he's doing Romans one through eight. I don't think he's doing the whole book. That's right. But yeah, Romans one through eight and they'll show up, they'll have teaching, they'll have small group time. I think they do a game at the very beginning. It's a great time. In fact, my son the other day was just telling me just how much he's loving our student ministry right now. He's a junior this year. And he told me, actually, he said, it's, our student ministry is at the point now where if you were to ask me, Hey, would you, have wanted to leave California and come out here and plant or stay in California. He was like I'm glad we're out here. I would choose, let's go out there and plant in California or plant in Texas, wow. Which is high praise. That is high praise. Yeah. Because he really loved our student ministry program back there. Who didn't yeah. I don't know. I loved it. I didn't have any issues with it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anybody did. It was sincere who did it. Yeah. It was great. Yeah. Anything new? Anything going on in your life, pastor Rod? No. Nothing I can think of. No funny setting mean everything's back in the regular swing of things. Yeah. Feeling pretty good about the season ahead? Yeah. Everything's going pretty well. Good. Good. That's awesome. Let's jump into Ezekiel then and let's change that by getting into I do like his bread. Do you though? I do. Because they don't make it the same way. They don't make it the same way. So the bread that I eat made it the same way from Ezekiel. He's making better bread these days. Yeah, he is all has to do, I think what it's baked over. Hey, Ezekiel is one of the exilic prophets and what is interesting here is you may immediately assume, okay, so this is chronologically after the fall of Jerusalem but it's not. Ezekiel was taken in one of the previous rounds of captivity, one of the previous deportations. Remember there were three deportations, so he was probably what, the second deportation would be, my guess. 5 97. That's right. Yeah. And so he's. In Babylon already, and yet Jerusalem's still standing. And that's imperative that we understand that. Otherwise, what happens in the book of Ezekiel really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us. So Gaden meets Ezekiel in exile, and this is as the book opens in the 30th year and the fourth month, the fifth day of the month there's some question as to what the 30th year refers to. But if it's connected down to the fifth year of the exile, king Jehoiachin down in verse two, then we're dealing with sometime around 5 93 BC would be the reference point here. Is this the 30th year of the prophet? It's possible. Is this the 30th year of another king That was around? Maybe. But certainly we can grab the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin for a date, 5 93 bc That's why we know that Jerusalem has not fallen yet. And we know that also from the context as the rest of the book unfolds. But the first chapter. It includes this this magnificent vision of God's glory that starts out with four creatures. And so the way that Ezekiel is going to describe the glory of the Lord here in, in some ways similar to the way that Isaiah describes it when he sees it in Isaiah chapter six, is he's gonna. Start from the bottom and begin to work his way up. And Ezekiel starts from the bottom here, and it's these four, four creatures. And they're these angelic creatures that each have a face that is unique with a face of a different animal and they have wings and that they are moving about supernaturally. There's these wheels that are associated with them. There's wheels within wheels there's eyes around these wheels and there's a lot that we'll get into where it's what is this? Stand for? What are the eyes all around the wheels represent? Is it the omniscience of God? And the fact that the, they can move anywhere they want to. Is this the omnipresence of God? Is this that, that God is not constrained? God is not restrained by anything because above these creatures is this platform, this expanse as is described there in verse 22. And on that platform or on that expanse is the throne, and sitting on the throne is one with a human appearance who had this. Waste that was gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from that, he saw the appearance of fire and there was brightness all around him. So you'll notice in this opening vision of what is the glory of God there's a lot of brilliance, there's a lot of light, and that is something that is often associated in scripture with the glory of God, that when he shows up, there's light, in fact, in the eternal state. You mentioned, I think in a recent episode, hey, there's not gonna be a moon. There's not gonna be the sun if we understand it correctly. Because the lamb is the sun the presence of God is all the light we will ever need, and there's no night because the glory of God is gonna be perpetually on display if we assume it. To be what it says there in the text. And so this brilliance is what we see here and in our fallen state. We can't stand to be in the presence of this. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord is so much and this is the experience that his ego has, that the very last verse of chapter one says that when he saw the glory of the Lord, he fell on his face until he heard the voice of one speaking. And so it's like when you walk outside after a movie. In a dark theater and you see the brilliance of the summer sun that shines off the concrete and it all, it hurts your eyes to have them open when you walk out of a dark room. That's what it is to be in the presence of God. Even if you were in the brightest, most brilliant daytime light, when you are in the presence of God, the contrast is that stark. Yeah. What's really interesting about this first chapter is we're introduced to a class of angel that we really see every now and then in the text, but it's curious what they do well here they are. They are part of God's mobile throne chariot. And so it's hard to figure out what it looks like, but some really interesting artistic renditions are available online. Just Google Ezekiel's Throne Chariot or something like that. You'll find some interesting takes on what that could look like, especially when you start talking about wheels within wheels. We're thinking maybe something gyroscopic that allowed them to turn wherever. That, that is to say that God's presence and his power is not limited. Two dimensionally or even three dimensionally. He's intra dimensional. I guess it could be anywhere he wants. And the wheels convey that. The eyes, as you said, suggesting his omniscience, his omni presence with the wheels and all those things. But the Cher Beam. The Cher Beam are an interesting class of angel. We don't know a whole lot about them except so that they end up showing up. And really critical places where God's glory is being most manifested. So here to your point, you're seeing them as one of the representatives or one of the associates who attend to God's glory. And so what's interesting about them, besides the fact that they have multiple heads with multiple faces now, and we'll get a, we'll get a sense about what those are in the next couple chapters here. I think we talk about them again pretty soon. But that's all to say, these guys show up in some really critical places. You can find them. In the tabernacle. You can find them in the temple. Now remember, they are part of the. Ark of the Covenant they're above the Ark of the Covenant, and then in the temple their wings are touching each other in the Holy of Holies. And so they are some of the most significant beings, angelically speaking, and they end up in places where God's glory is concentrated. What that means, what that suggests besides what we see, I don't know. But it's interesting because they're a fun class to think about the Cher Beam. Interesting. They show up all over the scriptures. In fact, if you just type in the word, I see 90 some odd occurrences here, just in my ESV Bible alone, the especially sanctified version, if you use something else, I'd be interested to see what that is. But there you go. What stood out to me too on this one, this time around it was when he says in verse 24, I heard the sound of their wings, which you were just talking about, their wings, like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty. So he compares the sound of their wings to the sound of the Lord, to the sound of God. Which is interesting that the connection there, again, that's one of those things that I don't know that I necessarily have an answer for what he meant by that, other than he's saying the sound of God's voice later on sounds like the rushing of their wings as they're there moving around in front of Ezekiel here in the opening chapter. The. Chapter two is the call on Ezekiel, and this is where Ezekiel is commissioned, much like the prophets are, as we've seen that before. Isaiah six is that same situation where Isaiah is before the presence of God. And God says, who will go for us? And Isaiah says, here I am. Send me Ezekiel is going to be called it says in verse two as he spoke to me, the son of or the spirit. Entered into me and set me on my feet. So I remember Ezekiel had fallen down on his face, and so the spirit of God comes to Ezekiel, enters into him and stands him up to be able to hear the commissioning from God. This is an interesting scene here. This is not a permanent and dwelling, and we know it's not a permanent and dwelling because later on it's gonna happen again. Verse 24 of chapter three, but the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, which implies that this is not the spirit. Entering into Ezekiel the same way it happens for a believer at the moment of conversion. This is not a ceiling presence of the spirit, but an equipping presence of the spirit. And it seems here that the spirit is equipping Ezekiel to be able to stand in the presence of the glory of God and to hear from him and to receive his commission. And that's what God is going to do. And God is going to send him to the nations. Now, when he says to Israel and to the nations, I think. What we should understand there is the nations of Israel and Judah the nations of the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. I don't know that this is directly that this is a message that's to the gentile nations. I think this is God referring to the dual nations there of the north and the southern kingdoms there who have rebelled against me. And the reason being, the reason for this this commissioning is the descendants are imput and stubborn. So their fathers rebelled. And even now, today, they are still. Impudent in stubborn, as he says in verse four. And so they need to hear the words of God, and that's what Ezekiel has commissioned to speak in verse seven. You shall speak my words to them. Whether they hear or refuse to hear for they are a rebellious house. For that reason, I would agree with you that he's not talking about nations in general that is including the Gentiles, but specifically Israel and Judah, because you see here in the context, he's not talking to just anybody. He's talking about the rebellious house. Same word that he uses, just a few verses previously that they're a rebellious nation. He calls him hero, rebellious house. So I would agree with you. Now, one quick thing that I forgot to mention here in chapter one is that Ezekiel's in Babylon? Yeah. This is what's interesting here. Yeah. Ezekiel's in Babylon with the other exiles, and so he's beginning to see these things. I think, by the way, that the reference to the 30 is probably his age. He's a priest. He would've been installed for priestly service at this timeframe, but instead, God send. Sends his spirit to him to equip him. Now for prophetic ministry, not every priest was a prophet, but in this case Ezekiel is. And so what we have here is a really unusual depiction of God showcasing his kindness by sending Ezekiel and talking about the future. For Judah at this point, and remember this is 5 93, give or take, and so Judah is still in operation. We have a few years before they are totally leveled by Nebuchadnezzar. So here something gracious, something kind of God shows an incredible vision and God's still got a future in store for them. Not all of it is good though. Yeah. And it's interesting, verse seven sets up chapter three because he says whether they hear or refuse to hear a year to go and speak my words to them. And so as chapter three opens, God tells him, son, man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this, scroll and speak to the house of Israel. So e Ezekiel has given a scroll to ingest and. A scroll, squirrel scroll. He gave him a squirrel to eat. Squirrel. Did I say squirrel? No, just checking. Okay. He's given a scroll to eat. And God is basically telling him, I want you to ingest my words so that when you speak, you're gonna speak my words. And that's the point of this scroll eating situation here in chapter three. And that's what? He's gonna do. But then in verse seven he says, but the house of Israel won't be willing to listen to you. And then in verse 11, he says, go to the exiles to your people and speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord, whether they hear or refuse to hear. So that's a callback to verse seven of chapter two, whether they hear or refuse to hear. And then from here. He gives this reasoning here. He says, Ezekiel, you have a job. Your job is to warn them as the watchman. Your job is not whether or not they respond to you. You can't change that. You can't alter that. You can't do something to help that or hurt that unless you tamper with the message. Your job is to be faithful to the message, to proclaim it and that's where your responsibility is going to stop. If you don't do this, then God says in chapter three, when I judge them, I'm gonna hold you accountable for the fact that you didn't teach them the way they should have been taught. But if you do and their souls are saved, then you know what? I'm gonna commend you for that because you did the job that you were supposed to do. But it all comes down to the call that. Ezekiel has received is to eat my words, speak my words, and trust me with the results. And that's how the chapter ends. In chapter three says, he who will hear, let him hear. And he who refuses to hear, let him refuse for they are a rebellious house. But Ezekiel, your job is to go with my message. I love the imagery that God uses here with Ezekiel. He makes him eat the scroll, not the squirrel, the scroll squirrel. He makes him eat it. In other words, I, in order to give it to others, you need to ingest it yourself. And what a great thing for us to think about if we're going to utilize the word of God as he intended it, to serve others and to love others with it. We have to be imbibing it ourselves. We have to be ingesting, intaking all that we can of the word. And when we do that equips us to be helpful to other people here. And even though this isn't the way that God treated all of his prophets here, I love it. He shows him eat this and then you can give it to others. And it's also the same for you and for I. At chapter four, we get into an interesting situation that causes us to, to scratch our heads a little bit because Ezekiel is going to be charged with this again, living parallel, a parable, much like he got us done before with other prophets. He's gonna call Ezekiel to do the. Thing. And he's gonna take a brick, he's gonna lay the brick on its side, and he's gonna call the brick Jerusalem. So he's representing the city here, and he's gonna have to build these siege works up around the wall, up around this brick. And then God is gonna tell him, you know what? And now I want you to do this, lie on your left side and you're gonna do this for 390 days equal to the number of the years of their punishment. And then he's gonna eventually turn around and lie on his right side, and that's gonna be for 40 days. And that's gonna be for the years of their punishment. So 390 days, that seems to be for Israel, 40 days for Judah. And we're not exactly sure how to make all of these numbers compute in precise ways to be able to point back and say, this is exactly what it was. 'cause some people have said the 390 years represents the northern kingdom. But the northern kingdom, if you calculate it all out, comes up to, to just shy of three 90 years. I think it's 340 something years of the divided monarchy there. And so we're not exactly sure, unless it's. Hearkening back to when Solomon began to fail as a king. And that's when the 390 years began there. And then the 40 days, or the 40 years that is, are Judahs. That's I think obviously a callback to the significance of the 40 years in the wilderness. The wilderness wanderings. But God is tasking eel to do this. So the question we have to ask is this literal? And I think it's literal, although, as we've talked about before, I don't think this is literal, that he's. Never getting up from the ground because he's gonna task him after this. As you brought up the bread situation. He's gonna ask task him after this to. Bake this bread, and he's gonna have him bake this bread and he's gonna have to bake the bread over excrement. And that's representative of the human excrement. Yeah. And then Ezekiel says, can I have a substitute please? And God says, yeah, you can use cow excrement instead. And this is to represent the desperation of the siege of how desperate people are gonna be, even for food. That they're gonna be willing to do unthinkable things during the siege. He's baking at some point. He's getting all of these supplies at some point. So I don't think this is a literal, he's 24 7 laying on his right side, 24 7, laying on his left side. But for a portion of the day, at least he's doing this to drive home the point to the people. I would agree with that. So there's clearly evidence here that these numbers are probably, I guess I wouldn't say clearly, they're probably symbolic and whatever that was. We don't fully know. We have lots of guesses, but the major point here is that God is utilizing Betty Crocker, Ezekiel here to make signs such that he's communicating with them and that communication is a warning. It is his mercy and his kindness to speak to his people with these warnings and say, here's the things that you need to know. Here's how you need to be prepared. I'm coming and there's no deter me at this point. In fact, some of the wording that Ezekiel will use, and I'll highlight it later when we get to it for the first time. It is concerning. It's challenging. It challenges my theology, challenges the way that I understand God. But it says what it says, and so here God is communicating in a merciful way to say, be prepared. Better yet, change your ways because something bad is coming. Yeah. Stick with us with Ezekiel. Ezekiel is such a rich book. It can be daunting, but it's a rich book. And when we read it, I think a lot of it is, it's got a reputation, right? It's oh, the book of Ezekiel. It's got visions of the end times and it's got this vision of the chariot and the wheel eyes within the wheels and wheels within wheels. If you'll stick with us and read it, I think you'll find that, that there's a doctrine of scripture called the perspicuity of scripture, right? The perspicuity of scripture means that the Bible is readable and understandable that God has revealed himself to us in a way that we can understand. So we talked about it a little bit on Sunday. Sometimes one of the reasons why we don't like to read the Bible is 'cause it's hard and it is hard sometimes. But there are those resources and helps that we've been given so that we can understand the things that man Ezekiel was writing for our benefit as Peter wrote. And so we can use the ESV Study Bible or the Lham Study, Bible Faith Life Study Bible. We can use these resources to help us understand these passages in these texts. And we don't have to be afraid of a book like Ezekiel. So if you will read it with us, give yourself over to the reading of God's word. I trust that God has revealed himself who wants to be known by you and giving you the spirit to understand these things will honor that resolve and that commitment for you, and you will be better off after coming through the book with us. Let's pray and then we'll be done. God, we do ask if that would be true, that we would be more like Christ after our time in the book of Ezekiel than we are on the front end. I pray that you'd help us to understand the things that are difficult as much as we're able to, and the things that are yours to understand only I pray that we would be able to trust you with those things and to leave them in your hands. And so we thank you for a book that is so rich. We pray that we would do our part to, to read our part, to ingest your words even as you told Ezekiel that he was to do, we're not gonna. Eat the Bible necessarily, but we want to internalize your truth and hold it dear to ourselves, and so we pray that you'd help us to understand this in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Keep you in your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you folks. Bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said