Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We are back on Saturday, so hopefully you're enjoying your Saturday. We've got in a couple weekends here women's retreat is gonna be going on, so I know final preparation is well underway for that. I don't think it's next weekend, but the week after. After that. So be praying for that. As well as just other things that that God's doing with our church. It's been a great season. God's grown our church. We're excited for that. We're excited for the fall as we get back into things. Ministry's picking back up. I know student ministry has been back for a while. They didn't really take any time off, but starting this new series in Romans on Wednesday nights that Lewis is going through, we've got a venture club going on, man. Things are happening and it's it's exciting to. See it all unfold and be a part of it all. And I know that a couple weeks ago, pastor Mark gave a plug during our announcements for our community groups and just want to re reemphasize that and reiterate that. And if you're listening to this, my guess is most people that listen to this from our church family are. Already in community, and that's great. If you're not, we would really encourage you to do that. Pastor Rod and I were just talking about that this week, that it really does enable us to shepherd you most effectively when you're in community with other believers. So we would love for you to get in involved in a community group if you're already in one and you happen to meet some visitors. That's our next step. People say, what does it look like? How do I get involved? How do I get connected? That next step would be we would welcome them to get connected in community groups. So that's when we know, okay, yeah you're with us. You're all in. This is your church home. We're your pastors. So if you're part of a community group and you're meeting somebody that's new that's there, maybe say, Hey, have you joined a community group? Would you consider being a part of ours? Do you want to come and and check out what ours is like on, thursday night is Tuesday night is whenever your group meets. Such an important thing that is, is a part of our DNA here at our church and it's so important for us as pastors as well. Lots of good things happening and all that to say. And we're excited about it, about everything that's going on right now. Yeah, lots of big things ahead too. Maybe some changes coming down the. We'll see, that's a hook. They don't even know what I'm talking about. They don't know what you're talking about. When they find out about Pastor Amanda, things are gonna change. Yikes. Yikes. That, yeah. That would be a dramatic Andras change. A lot would've already had to have. Taking place there. That's not the change, by the way, in case you're wondering. Let's jump into our DBR Ezekiel 13, 14 a and 15. So we're working our way through. We've gone after the idolaters, we've gone after the wicked counselors. Now he's turning to the false prophets and these are the ones that are prophesying o obviously things that are not true. That's why they're false prophets and they're prophesying notice there from their own hearts, which. Jeremiah is the one who said the heart is deceitful above all things. So these prophets, false prophets are prophesying from their own hearts. There it says in verse two, and they're the ones that are trying to comfort the people in the midst of what is evident to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear impending doom. God has been saying judgment is coming, and judgment was indeed coming. Yet the false prophets were lying to the people. In trying to make a bad situation look better than what it is. In fact, that's why God confronts them is those that are whitewashing the walls think of Jesus. Who in the New Testament is gonna pick up the theme of whitewashing and call the Pharisees, whitewash tombs. He's gonna say, you look great on the outside, but inside you're full of dead man's bones. You're dead and decaying on the inside. And similarly here, the prophets are whitewashing the walls of a city that's about to be destroyed. And so God is using this imagery of a wall because of what is about to happen with. Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon about to come in and destroy the walls and saying, of these prophets, you, you're putting up walls. You're causing people to trust in something and whitewashing it to look like it's great, but those walls are gonna be destroyed. And then what of your whitewashed then what of your words? It's gonna be empty, it's gonna be meaningless, it's gonna be pointless. And so God is coming after the thoughts Prophets here in chapter 13. End of chapter 13. He also goes off after the prophetess. And these, this seems to be a brand of false prophecy. Correct me if I'm wrong pr but of mysticism that in dealing with the occult, maybe potentially even here with these magic bands. There's something different here than the just them standing up saying, thus says the Lord. The Lord says this, that there's some sort of the. We might call it the dark magic that's present here, that they're trying to bring into this and make it part of Christianity, or not part of Christianity, part of their prof prophecy to the Jewish people as well. It's always peculiar that man always seeks more religious experiences than what God gifts us. We're never contented with the way that God presents himself to us. We're always looking for more deeper. More interesting experiences, and here I think you see the proclivity that Israel has. And we all have it. I'm not gonna throw them out there and say that they're alone. But here you have it in black and white. The women are doing something more than what the men are doing, but it's not unique to them. We all have this sense of, I don't like the way that God has spoken to me. I want more than just the word of God. I want. These feelings or these particular experiences that going down a road like that does provide, and that's the scary part. If you dabble in these things, they're real. They're real things, which is why God tells us, don't go that way because they're dangerous. He doesn't tell us that because he's afraid of being, outshine by the demonic forces behind those things. But yes, I agree. They're doing something evil, something that God is forbidden. It's some kind of witchcraft or sorcery. And this is dangerous for the people, for a whole host of reason reasons, but not the least of which being it's real. Be aware of those things. Yeah. Yeah. Chapter 14. Then we're moving now into the realm of the elders, and so we've been through all of these and we're escalating now we're getting to the realm of the elders, and the elders are condemned for their idolatry, but it's not just idolatry. It's deep-seated idolatry. Look at verse three. It's son of man. These men have taken their idols into their hearts. And set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. He says, should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? He's gonna repeat this idea multiple times. I think at least three times of taking the idols into the hearts. This is a dangerous thing when it's not just that you're flirting with something that is. Potentially idolatrous, but this has become now something that has stolen your affections. It has a place in your heart and it is something that you love. There's a book called You Become What You Love. And that's the idea here that you are taking it into your heart. You are loving this idol and God is gonna bring judgment there. And what's interesting here, I think this is the first time in the book of Ezekiel, we see the word repent and we find it there in verse six, he says, of these elders, he says, repent and turn away from your idols. Turn away from these, all of these abominations and the call there is, listen, you need to turn back from your idols, or God is gonna turn himself back from you. God is gonna turn away from you. And so the confrontation there, but the thing that, that I want us to see is that idolatry left unchecked, it. It sinks its roots deep into our lives and deep into our hearts. And the longer we entertain our idols the more they become entwined in our hearts, entwined in our lives, entwined in our affections the harder they are to rid our lives of them. And this is what's happened here. This has become deep seated idolatry with the elders of Jerusalem at this point. As the chapter continues, there's more sobering. We've seen this previously. I don't remember all of the people that were listed in in the previous time that we encountered a similar situation but God says, look, even if some of my favorite people were present in the city, so this time he's gonna identify Noah. He's gonna identify Daniel, and he's going to identify job and he's gonna identify these three. And I think the reason why he identifies the these three is because they stood out. In the Bible for their righteousness. Noah was considered a man of righteousness. In the midst of a perverse generation. Job was considered a man of righteousness, blameless. Have you considered my servant job? There's no one like him. And then you've also got Daniel, who, when he was in Babylon in exile, was also considered to be a man of immense righteousness who would not compromise. And God is saying even if they were there, the wickedness of the city is so much that they would be spared. But the city would face the judgment that I'm bringing against it. So this is quite the indictment to say, E, even if these three were there, these paradigms of godliness and righteousness, it wouldn't be enough to turn away what's about to happen to the city. What's interesting is that Daniel is a contemporary of Ezekiel. Yeah. Daniel went into exile first. If our timing is right, and I believe that we are 6 0 5 BC Ezekiel's exile was 5 97, so Daniel had already grown a reputation for being a man after the Lord, which is so fascinating because he's of the time, which I think is wonderful. And Daniel's a man after the Lord's heart in a different way. He's not David, but he shows remarkable. Resiliency, resolve and godliness. And I think that's especially powerful. And the fact that God is saying, even if you had these three guys. Interceding on your behalf. I would still say no. That's terrifying. Yeah. That means you've passed a line that God is saying you've passed a line that you can't return from. Yeah. It, the other thing about Daniel, he is, he's probably mid twenties at most at this point too, because if he's taken in 5 97 as a teen. We're not quite to 5 86 or we're in 5 86 at this point. So we've 10 years have passed. 11 years have passed. So Daniel is obviously gonna live much longer than that. And in a lot of that happens in Daniel's, life happens much later on. So this is even prior to Daniel in the Lion's den, this is Daniel's reputation in the early stages there. Yeah. Of his faithfulness in his righteousness in God's eyes. Already seen as a godly dude. Yeah. Oof. Yeah. That's awesome. Chapter 15 then is brief, but it is comparing Jerusalem to something that nobody had any use for. And that is the wood of a vine. The wood of the vine really isn't the point of the vine when the vine is growing and then when the vine is dead, the wood of the vine is there to be burned, but even to burn it is, it doesn't produce the heat. It doesn't produce the long lasting flame that you really need to be kept warm. I think the writer of Proverbs even talks about that. And so this is really God looking at the people of Israel saying. I'm done with you and what you are left to me is nothing. You're useless to me now. And the judgment is coming and when I bring it, it's going to consume you as the fire would consume the wood from the vine. All right we got a shorter episode today that makes up a little bit for a 24 minute marathon yesterday, but you're welcome. Yeah, I know you guys like the mid-range. We'll try to strike that balance. That was that was on us. That was on me. Anyways, let's pray and we'll be done with this episode. God, we thank you for your word. We pray against the idolatry that is described here in verse 14 or chapter 14, that the deep seated heart saturating idolatry help us to be a people that are pure, like Daniel, like Noah, like Joe, that we would be able to be named among them too, to say if they were there. Luda, we want to be men and women of faithfulness, men and women. Of integrity, and that matters to us because it matters to you. So enable us by your spirit to live such lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Keep you in your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye bye.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said