Episode Transcript
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Beloved. Let's turn to God's word. Now in Ezekiel, Ezekiel, chapter
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three, I'm going to be reading
verse sixteen through the end of the chapter,
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Sixteen through twenty seven. Le Grass
withers, flowers fade, but the
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word of our Lord stands forever.
Let's give our attention to it. And
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at the end of seven days,
the word of the Lord came to me.
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Son Of man, I have made
you a watchman for the House of
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Israel. Whenever you hear a word
from my mouth, you shall give them
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warning from me. If I say
to the wicked, you shall surely die
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and you give him no warning,
nor speak to warn the wicked from his
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wicked way in order to save his
life, that wicked person shall die for
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his iniquity, but his blood I
will require at your hand. But if
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you warn the wicked and he does
not turn from his wickedness or from his
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wicked way, he shall die for
his iniquity, but you will have delivered
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your soul again. If a righteous
person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice
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and I lay a stumbling block before
him, he shall die because you have
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not warned him. He shall die
for his sin and his righteous deeds that
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he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at
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your hand, for if you warn
the righteous person not to sin or but
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if you warn the righteous person not
to sin and he does not sin,
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he shall surely live because he took
warning, and you will have delivered your
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soul. And the hand of the
Lord was upon me there and he said
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to me, arise, go out
into the valley, and there I will
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speak with you. So I arose
and went out into the valley and behold,
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the glory of the Lord stood bear
stood there like the glory that I
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had seen by the cabar canal,
and I fell on my face, but
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the spirit entered into me and set
me on my feet, and he spoke
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with me and said to me,
go shut yourself within your house and you,
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Oh son of man, behold.
Cords will be placed upon you and
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you shall be bound with them so
that you cannot go out among the people,
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and I will make your tongue clinging
to the roof of your mouth so
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that you shall be mute and unable
to reprove them, for they are a
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rebellious house. But when I speak
with you, I will open your mouth
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and you shall say to them.
Thus says the Lord God. He who
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will hear, let him hear,
and he will refuse to hear. Let
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him refuse, for they are a
rebellious house. So, as we have
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seen in the previous verses, in
Ezekiel, God has called this Prophet to
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a very, very high and hard
task. He has called Zekiel to preach
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judgment, not to people that want
to hear it, but to a rebellious
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house, a people that do not
want to hear it, a people that,
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the Lord said previously, will not
listen. And nevertheless is Zeke and
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nevertheless Ezekiel must speak. He must
speak, and that fact has been impressed
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upon him in two ways. One, through his vision of the glory of
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the Lord. Ezekiel has come face
to face with a divine warrior, a
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king seated on his throne, on
the move, ready to judge his people.
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Ezekiel has seen what is coming as
he sees of the Lord, and
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he hears what is coming as he
hears the Lord. And this is also
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impressed on his Ekiel in another way, not only through his eyes, but
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also through his words and and in
his own body. It would seem unable
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to stand. The spirit of God
lifts him up. That same spirit that
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causes the divine warriors chariot to move
injustice lifts up the Prophet and enables him
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to work, enables him to do
the things that he is called to do,
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to speak as he has been told
to speak. And now, as
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we come to this passage in Ezekiel
three, the end of his equel three,
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this is impressed yet once more.
This call of Ezekiel is not short,
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it is not brief. We see
it impressed over and over again on
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this is not just for his ekiel's
benefit, loved, but it's for ours.
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It reminds us that we must listen
to what he has to say.
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This is a man who has come
face to face with the Lord, God
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Almighty, who speaks a word of
judgment, who does not wink at sin,
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who has seen the rebelliousness of his
own people and is coming in judgment.
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If we are going to just walk
away ignore it, we find ourselves
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in similar danger. These chapters are
here for us to see what is Egal
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sees, to hear what is evil, hears to know the heart of God,
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the will of God. What a
blessing that is to us if we
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if we have ears to hear and
eyes to see. And the way that
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this is impressed even further here in
this passage is by a word to the
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prophet, not only to speak as
he has been spoken to, but a
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warning that if he does not,
he will die. He will die,
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in other words, as God speaks
in this passage, in verses sixteen through
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twenty seven, there are two audiences
immediately in view, the people that is
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Ekiel will speak to, and Ezekiel
himself. That same righteousness and obedience that
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God is calling the people to,
God is also calling Ezekiel to. You
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remember, perhaps in a previous verse, when God told is Ekiel, don't
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be rebellious like these people are.
Speak as I have spoken to you.
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The Lord essentially says the same thing
again. He says this and impresses this
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in two particular ways as he thinks
about his word to the wicked and his
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word to the righteous. Let's look
at it again. He says, if
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I say to the wicked, you
shall surly die and you give him no
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warning, nor speak to the wicked
or nor warn the wicked from his wicked
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way in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die from his
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iniquity, but his blood I will
require your hand. Do you see the
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two audiences there? The two people
that really need to listen to this,
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the wicked. If they do not
turn or if they do not hear,
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in other words, I should say
if they do not hear the warning of
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the Lord, they don't get off. It's like, Oh, I didn't
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hear the word of the Lord,
so I'm okay. No, he says,
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if they don't hear, they shall
die. Why? Because of their
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iniquity. It's not as though they
there salvation or or there. I'm sorry,
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they're their judgment is dependent on whether
is Zekiel does well or not.
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They are judged because they have not
done well. There's already a problem even
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before the Prophet speaks. They've already
been condemned, they've already fallen into sin.
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That person, even if Ezekiel doesn't
say anything, will still die.
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Why? Because of their sins.
They will be held to account for their
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sins. But then, speaking to
Ezekiel directly here, God says, but
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his blood I will require at your
hands. They will be accounted for for
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their sins and you will be accounted
for yours, accountable for your sin.
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And what would iszekiel sin be in
that instance? His refusal to obey the
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word of the Lord and speaking the
word of the Lord. Verse Nineteen.
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But if you warn the wicked and
he does not turn from his wickedness or
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his wicked way, God doesn't hold
a Zekiel to account for that. Why?
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Because Ezekiel's done his job. Ezekiel
has fulfilled the commandment. The man
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who stays in his wicked way,
yes, he will still, he shall
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die for his iniquity. But you, Ezekiel, will have delivered your soul.
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Is Zekiel, this man, who
is called the son of man,
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even as Jesus is called the son
of man, as Adam is a son
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of man, is being called a
righteousness. If you obey this, you
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will live. If you don't obey
this, you will die. In other
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words, that same law that's being
impressed upon the people of God is being
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impressed upon the prophet him himself.
He doesn't get to sort of rise above
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it all. No, he must
obey. Similarly, in Verse Twenty,
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the Lord Impresses this point again.
If a righteous person turns from his righteousness
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and commits injustice, and I lay
a stumbling block before him, he shall
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die. Why? Because you have
not warned him. He shall die for
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his sin, and his righteous deeds
that he's done shall not be remembered.
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When we break the law, we
break the law. God doesn't look back
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on our righteousness and go well,
there was some good in there. Now
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one sin is worthy of our condemnation
because God is perfect, holy in every
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way. There's no sort of balancing
act in this world. We get a
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little bit of that kind of grace
right. Well, you know, you
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didn't file all your stuff on time. By you did really good on this
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project, so we're going to keep
you around. But when we're talking about
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the Kingdom of Heaven, we're time
about the holiness of God, one fault,
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one sin, is enough to borrow
us from heaven. And if that
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seems harsh to you, and it
does seem harsh to me sometimes, it
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tells us something about our understanding of
sin. It's too low, we think
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of our sin is too low.
If we can look the glory of the
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Lord here, of the glory of
the Lord in His divine wrath and his
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mighty power, with lightnings and flashing, the flashing of fire and his thundering
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and the angels and the wheels and
go. It sin really that bad,
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then we have not understood what sin
is and we have not understood the holiness
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of the Lord, and honestly,
we never really will until we've come into
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perfection, when we come into the
glory of the Lord. And so don't
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pass over these things and let them
just sort of in one ear out the
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other. Understand the importance of these
things. Righteous deeds are not remembered when
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the one who is righteous commits sin. But if Ezekiel again, turning to
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the Prophet himself, but if Ezekiel
does not warn the righteous who has turned
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toward wickedness, as he said,
before his blood I will require of your
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hands. But if you warn the
righteous person not to sin and he does
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not sin, he will surely live
because he took your warning and you will
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have delivered your soul. So righteousness
is required on both the hand, on
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both the part of the Prophet and
on the part of the people. But,
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as we come to see, isekiel's
ability to do this, this thing
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that God has totally, one hundred
percent required of him, is totally one
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hundred percent dependent on God, and
we see that in the verses after he
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receives yet again, another vision of
the glory of the Lord, another again,
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the spirit entering him and setting on
him, setting him on his feet.
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And then he says to his Zekiel, in Verse Twenty Four, go
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shut yourself within your house and you
a son of man, behold, cords
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will be placed upon you. You
shall be bound with them so that you
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cannot go out among the people.
He says, I will make your tongue
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cling to the roof of your mouth
so that you shall be mute and unable
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to reprove them. So God,
in his perfect wisdom, gives this spectacular
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vision to this prophet, to this
man, commissions as is a prophet,
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warns him with the most dire of
warnings, that he must speak as he
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has spoken to that he must go
to the wicked and he must go to
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the people of Israel and tell them
what the Lord says, and then he
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shuts his mouth, sticks him in
a house and binds him up. Why
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would God Commission a Prophet in this
way and in such a strong way and
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then shut him up? Ask Joseph, ask Daniel, ask Paul, ask
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Jesus, who went as silent as
a lamb to be bound to across.
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What this teaches us is that God
is sovereign over everything, over the prophets,
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over Providence, over salvation, over
judgment. We like to think that
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if we get, or if we
were to receive a sight of God,
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a vision of God, like Ezekiel
had, that would be enough to inspire
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us, to equip us to then
go live our lives in the service of
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God and to do great things.
But it's not enough. Ezekiel doesn't only
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need to receive this vision, he
doesn't only need to be commanded by God,
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he must also be set free by
God and empowered, set on his
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feet to speak. We like to
think that if we'd get a sight of
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God, that would be enough,
or we like to think that if we
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knew the gospel of Jesus Christ enough, then that would be enough to compel
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us to good works, or that
or that, if we order that,
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if the the bad news of God's
judgment was terrifying enough, that perhaps that
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would be enough for us. But
it's not. It's, of course,
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great to know the Gospel Really,
really well, and it's of course great
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to how to know the bad news
and fear the coming judgment, and it's
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of course great to have the visions
of God as we all have received it
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here through the Prophet's words in his
Ekiel, but without the spirit of God
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moving in our hearts, it's not
enough. We like to think it's enough
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because we will like to think that
it would be enough if for us to
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just sort of get this sort of, I don't know, gas in our
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take or something, and then we're
sort of good to go on our own.
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And then we begin to think of
all of our lives in this way.
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We think, well, if I'm
gentle enough, for forceful enough,
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for important enough, for our harsh
enough, or whatever it is we think
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we need to be, that that
will then enable us to speak the word
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of God and to live in the
word of God, that, having perhaps
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understood x well enough or seen X
or experienced x, that then we can
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live the Christian life and do as
we ought to do and speak as we
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ought to speak, live as we
ought to live. But what God is
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teaching Ezekiel and what God is teaching
his people through him, is that nothing,
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nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing
can read can break our rebellion against
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God to get except for God himself. Ezekiel will speak the word and they
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won't hear. That's a hard teaching, because we'd like to think that.
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Well, if I heard from a
Zeek killed for crying out out, I
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I'd listen to that. No,
he wouldn't, you wouldn't, because our
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sin is that bad, our sin
goes that deep. It's not enough to
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say here I am, send me. God must also send you, he
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must be with you, he must
empower you, and that's what he is
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teaching us through Ezekiel, that we
are entirely, entirely dependent on him and
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on His grace to change our rebellious
hearts and to move us. And I
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think that for most of us it
makes us uncomfortable. It makes us,
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and we hate to say it,
but really it makes us too dependent on
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God. If we're honest, I
think we're just not comfortable with letting go
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that much, with admitting that we
need him that much, that he is
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really that much in control, and
that's why we don't pray. It's why
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we don't read our bibles, it's
why we're sleepy and kind of unaffected when
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we hear of the glory of God
in his word, because we're just not
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that hungry. We just don't feel
the need that much we think we kind
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of, maybe a little bit,
maybe a lot, can handle it on
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our own, perhaps with God's help
here there. But that's not what is
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Ekiel is showing us. That's not
what God is showing us through Ezekiel.
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What he's showing us is that we
cannot manage on our own, we cannot
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change our hearts on our own,
we cannot save ourselves. We need him
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entirely. So I think part of
US feels like we don't really want to
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be that dependent on God. We
think we can partly manage ourselves on our
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own, and I think the other
part of US thinks that we're simply scared
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of what would happen if we admitted
that we do in fact have these sins.
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And it's scary to go before the
Almighty God facetoface, like Ezekiel does,
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because if we were really honest about
how much we need him, if
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we're really honest about how much we've
sinned against him, it's scary to come
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face to face with the Living God. It's terrifying, and so we rather
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not think about it really, and
so we are. We put ourselves in
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this weird position where the choice seems
to be pretend to be asleep, even
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though we know we're not asleep and
we know we need to wake up.
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But just kind of keep your eyes
closed and pretend the alarms not going off
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and hope that if you wait long
enough, something different will happen, or
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coming face to face with the fact
that the alarms going off and your late
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and you've messed everything up. And
those, we feel, our two options
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and because we our hearts are hard, we just kind of stay there in
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bed, we stay stuck, we
stay scared, we stay frustrated and we
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feel like there's no other option.
But God does offer a third way.
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Our sin tells us there's two choices. Stay blind in your disobedience and to
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your disobedience, pretend it's not there, or come to face with, face
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to face with the UNMEDIATED glory of
God Almighty. But there is a third
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way, a way that God provides, a way that is true and a
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way that is life. In that
way is Jesus, a prophet that is
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greater than than Ezekiel, who also
speaks of coming judgment, who also speaks
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of the wrath of God, and
then takes on the wrath of God himself
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to become a mediator between us and
God. As a prophet, Jesus speaks
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the word so that we could hear
and live and come to God and His
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Holiness through Jesus. So instead of
stay ending naked before God and all of
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our sin, we stand clothed in
the righteousness of God, in the righteousness
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of Christ, so that we don't
have to be terrified of coming face to
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God. But we face to face
with God, but we come boldly into
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his throne room, praising him for
his salvation, having the weight and the
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burden of sin lifted off of our
chest, so that we can finally breathe
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and be awake and be alive,
not to the judgment and condemnation of God,
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but to the salvation of God.
Jesus, likewise would be bound.
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As I mentioned before, Jesus,
like the Prophet, would be put would
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be silenced, but not forever.
Jesus fulfilled the law as a prophet,
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as a priest, as a king, as the son of man, perfectly.
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He did what Adam failed to do
and achieved righteousness for us that we
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that he might take our sins and
give to us his righteousness. He was
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obedient to death, not as a
punishment for his sins, but for ours.
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And this is the message that we
now have in the Gospel. Jesus
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speaks to us not only of judgment
that we as we see on the cross,
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but also of salvation. And so
beloved cling to the Lord Jesus Christ,
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cling to his words, this prophet
who speaks the words of Ezekiel better
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than Ezekiel spoke them and as Ekiel
spoke them by the spirit of God.
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Not that there was anything sinful about
what is ekiel spoke, but it wasn't
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as full, it wasn't as perfect, it wasn't as clear and it wasn't
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as final as the words of the
Prophet of the Lord, our Savior.
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And so when we hear his words
and we see them, I was going
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to say enacted, but I don't
want to make it sound like a pretend
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thing, right fulfilled in his flesh. It's what I'm trying to get at,
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in his body on the cross.
Let's hear with faith and believe that
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we might receive his righteousness and be
saved. Let's pray and
