In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: We're going to get through 11 and through 12 tonight. I'm pretty convinced we're going to be able to do that. We'll see, but we're going to take bigger bites of this as we go through it because some of it's narrative, but there are some extremely important points that are applicable to us today that I want to really make note of as we go through this.

I think there's a lot of similarity to the condition of the heart of God's people at this time when God is warning His people and then disciplining His people. Actually, the warning of Jeremiah back up in Jerusalem was, "You need to allow God to discipline you. Don't resist His discipline at this point because if you resist His discipline, He's going to destroy the city." And they did, and He did.

One of the things I would say before we pray and dive in, if God is disciplining you, He is not punishing you. He punished you on Jesus 2,000 years ago. Your sin was answered for. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, you and I are brought into a relationship with the Father. We are now His sons and daughters. We're never going to face the wrath of God again, but He corrects His kids. He says He only corrects those that He loves and only corrects those that are His. If He is correcting you in a certain area, don't resist it.

Yield to it, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it, and then it's like in the Old Testament, the Psalmist said, "Search my heart, try my reins, see if there be any wicked way in me." Bring it to the fore that I might deal with it and turn from it. In fact, we're going to read as we go through Ezekiel that God's heart is, "Turn ye, turn ye. Why will you perish?" says the Lord of Hosts. "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked."

I'm not punishing, I am correcting. We're going to see that as He goes through this corrective process about idolatry, because that's their sin, that after this, Israel fell into a lot of other things, but they never fell into idolatry again. Not as a whole nation. God cured them of it here. Sometimes He has to go to great lengths to cure us of certain things.

So let's pray and we'll dive into our study this evening. Father, we thank You. Thank You for Your word. Lord, I thank You that we can go through the Old Testament on Wednesday nights and we can learn from their mistakes so that we don't have to make the same ones. No sense reinventing the wheel, we just learn from them. Father, speak to our hearts tonight and then those things that Your Spirit shares to us, give permanence to those things, we would pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

As we come to verse 15 of chapter 11, we are finishing this second series of visions that God had given to Ezekiel. You know, in chapter 1, he's there by the River Chebar, he's on a prayer rock as it were. He's been whisked away from Jerusalem, he's been stripped of his ministry as a priest because he was almost 30 years old. If Jerusalem would have remained in good standing with the Lord, he would have been a priest.

He's in the second of those incursions that Nebuchadnezzar laid against Jerusalem, the first in 605 BC. Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego came in that particular siege. And then as they rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, he went back again in 597. This time he took all the instruments of worship from the temple and all of the priests and led them into Babylon. Ezekiel came with that group.

God just re-processed him from being a priest to a prophet. He has those wonderful visions. One of the things that we drew out of the first series of visions as he's seeing the throne of God and he's there and experiencing it, that God speaks to Ezekiel like He speaks to no other prophet. The book of Ezekiel is especially important to me because you see in this particular prophet that God is opening up His heart and revealing to Ezekiel how it's broken, almost like Hosea.

You remember God tells Hosea, one of the minor prophets, to go marry a woman of ill repute, a woman who would not be faithful to him. And she wasn't. In fact, as he named his children, God told Hosea to name one of them "He Who Is Not Mine." Every time he called one of his sons, "Hey, you that are not mine, come here," God was trying to show to this prophet His heart.

Then we read on and we find out that when she had sold herself completely into sin and she was on an auctioning block to be sold into slavery, then God tells Hosea, "Go sell everything you have and go buy her." Because that's what God did for us. We are the pearl of great price. I know some people get that whole parable wrong, they think that Jesus is the pearl of great price and we sell everything to buy Him. Listen, we are His purchased possession and heaven gave its best to purchase us.

As He goes through that first set of visions, one of the things I think that comes to the fore that is extremely important is there God is saying to Ezekiel, "Look what they have done. They have broken My heart with their whorish ways. They have defiled My temple so that I can no longer be there." We're going to see tonight that He's moving out now, He's moving away.

We saw earlier in chapter 11 that His spirit lifted up from the cherubim that cover the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant, and it moved to the threshold of the door. And then it's moving out into the courtyard and it will move up into the mountains when we're done. The term "Ichabod" will be written across the temple; the spirit of God has departed. What we see there is God is broken. His heart is weeping. "You've defiled My temple, you have polluted My city. Jerusalem is My city to the degree that I have to leave now. And don't think I'm not going to deal with this." Because He is.

When we came to chapter 8, several years have passed. He's sitting there, they recognize him as a prophet. The elders of Judah have gathered together to seek counsel of Ezekiel as it were, and he is caught up in the spirit. It's probably like a trance. Can you imagine those elders sitting there and he's whisked away? From chapter 8 through chapter 11 he's having a series of visions. It's like they're probably tapping on his head, "Are you there? Earth to Ezekiel." We don't know how long it took God to communicate these things to him.

At the end of chapter 11, he's going to come back and he's going to be able to tell them these are the visions. Then we're going to get another illustrated message in chapter 12. God is into giving illustrated sermons because His word can go in one ear and out the other, but when He illustrates something, it can't go in one eyeball and out the other. God is into giving illustrated sermons; that's why Jesus taught in parables.

For 100 years, God has been warning His people to turn from their wicked ways. Isaiah began to warn them 100 years before this actually is taking place. Isaiah would say things to them, "You are those who worship God with your lips, but your heart is far from Him." That's what religion does. It worships with the lips, but the heart is far from Him. God's not into religion, He's into relationship.

He wants your heart because He knows if He owns your heart, He owns everything that is in you. The heart will always make a convert of the head, what you think, and the hands, what you do. That's why in the Old Testament in the Shema, the Bible says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart." Jesus was asked in the New Testament by one of the Pharisees, one of the religious leaders came to him, a lawyer as it were, a scribe, and said to him, "What is the greatest of all commandments?" And Jesus said, "That you should love the Lord your God with all of your heart."

God's into relationships. That's why terms He uses, we're the bride of Christ, He's the bridegroom. He doesn't call us His wife. I don't call my wife my wife. She's my wife, that's a legal term. She's my wife, but when I address her as my bride, and she even addresses herself, "Well, I'm the bride of my born" because I tell her that.

The idea of bride means something that's new, something that's still exciting, something that's still fresh. After 42 years, we're still on our honeymoon. I know we don't look like honeymooners, I get that, but in my heart, in my heart I still am. I'm 46 years in the faith. I've been the bride of Christ for 46 years and I'm still on the honeymoon. He still owns my heart and it breaks my heart when I break His.

So I think we take sin too lightly today and we're going to see as we come into verse 15 that they did too and almost in a sense of entitlement. "We're God's people. We're God's people by covenant. We're God's people by covenant and this land is promised to us, it was promised to Abraham. It was promised to us and so we're not going to lose the land. This is an entitlement to us."

God is going to say, "Yeah, but there were conditions on that entitlement." In Deuteronomy 28, the conditions were, "If you keep My commandments, if you walk in My ways, if you follow My statutes, if you obey My ordinances, then I will bless you." In fact, the blessings that I bless you will overtake you. You'll be blessed in every aspect of your life as you go through that first section of Deuteronomy.

But then He also says, "If you leave Me to serve idols, if you forsake Me as the true and living God, if you turn your back on Me and you go," as it were, and these are the terms that God uses, His words not mine, "if you go a-whoring after other things," because that's how God feels when we do those things. He said, "Then you will be cursed and every aspect of your life will be cursed. I will curse you, I will break you, I will bring you to your knees. But when you repent, then I will restore you."

That's what we need to understand because as we come to the end of chapter 11, Ezekiel's saying, "Well, Lord, if You continue to correct Your people to the extent You're correcting them, there won't be any of us left." And He says, "No, no, no, I'll always have a remnant and I always have restoration in mind because He's the God of restoration."

Let's start back in verse 15 of chapter 11 where we finished last week. He says, "Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel completely, wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, 'Get you far from the Lord; unto us is this land given in possession.'" What they were saying to those that were fleeing the city because Jeremiah was prophesying that God was going to bring a sword, the Babylonians are going to return. He's going to bring a sword, He's going to bring famine, He's going to bring pestilence, and He's going to level this place because you have not submitted to His correction.

I'm going to tell you, there's times God has corrected me and I'm going to tell you the proper place. I've been there a number of times. I can remember the first time I went through as a real believer, went through the fire, was on the anvil, the hammer, dunked in the oil, really going through that process of God beating Mike Warren out of me and putting something of Himself in me. I just remember when that convicting work of the Spirit came over me that I got literally on my floor and wept before God because I felt that convicting work of the Spirit. I knew that I had transgressed His law, I knew from the Spirit I had broken His heart and my sin affected a lot of people around me and I was so broken over it. I remember weeping for hours and then for days.

That's how sin should affect us. It should never be a light thing and we should never think in terms of entitlement. Just because God is long-suffering and not dealing with your sin quickly and abruptly doesn't mean that He's accepted your behavior. See, sometimes we think, and I think that was what was going on in Jerusalem because God's judgment wasn't quick and it wasn't severe, that God's okay with what we're doing. We're still worshipping Him on Sabbath down at the Tabernacle or the Temple, but then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're up in the groves and the high places serving the idols.

They must have thought in their mind, "Because we're still serving God," because they would say, "God doesn't see, God doesn't care." And He says, "You don't think I see, you don't think I care? Do you think it's a light thing that you would do such a thing? Do you think it's a light thing that you would go a-whoring away from Me and break My heart? Do you think it's a light thing that you would defile My temple, that you would defile My city? Jerusalem is My city. To the degree that I have to leave now? And don't think I'm not going to deal with this." That was what He was saying to Ezekiel.

I think sometimes we think because God doesn't come quickly and severely with His correction of us that He's okay with it. You better check it out in the Word of God because if it ain't okay in the Word of God, it ain't okay. I've had people tell me that God gave them special permission to divorce their wife and go marry another woman because they made a mistake. I've had people tell me that and I've looked right in their face and said, "You are a liar and you're listening to the father of lies." God didn't give you permission to do that. That's not the spirit of the living God.

"Well, God gave me a special permission because He's okay with my drug abuse because He understands me." No, He's not okay with it. He's not okay with your drunkenness, your drug abuse, your immorality. Not okay with it. You belong to Him. You're to put off the old man, put on a new man, put away that lifestyle because He's given you the power of the Spirit to do that, the same power that raised Christ from the dead. We are without excuse to do anything but present our bodies as living sacrifices holy and acceptable unto Him.

But that's the attitude here we're finding. Now watch what it says they say to him. "You guys go ahead and flee Jerusalem. We're going to stay because this is ours by promise." Listen to what He will say later. It takes Him a few chapters to answer this, but in chapter 33, verses 23 through 25, Ezekiel gets around to dealing with this attitude in the people.

He says this, "The word of the Lord came unto me saying, 'Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak.'" Now it's interesting as we move through this, God no longer calls it Jerusalem, He no longer calls it the place of His dwelling, but He refers to it as wastes, the wastes of the land of Israel because they have defiled it.

He said saying, "Abraham was one, and he inherited this land, and we are many, and the land was given to us by inheritance. Wherefore say unto them, thus saith the Lord God: 'You eat with blood, and you lift up your eyes toward idols, and you shed blood, and shall you possess this land?'" Do you think just because you're Israelites and this land was given to Abraham by covenant, do you think you can do the things you are doing and I would be okay with that and I would allow you to be blessed in this land?

I want to apply that to the United States because I know that there are Christians today that are all caught up in the politics of it and they can't wait to 2024 to change the Congress and the Senate, 2022 and 2024 to get a new president. Listen, Trump is not our savior. I want you to know, this nation is being judged. 63 million abortions, this nation is being judged. The Supreme Court has finally come to their senses and said, "This is not a constitutional right." In fact, it's not only not a constitutional right to have an abortion, the Constitution of the United States is against it. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life.

Life. Well, when does life begin? Does it begin at conception? Does it begin when the heart begins to beat? Life begins way before that. Jeremiah 1:5 says, "I knew you before you were, before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you. I had a destination and a destiny for you." Let's say that it begins at conception. You can't even know that till the heart beats. It's murder. And now in our particular state, they have bills before Congress that even after the baby is born, you can set it aside and you can decide after it's born whether you want it or not.

Do you think the blood that is being shed in this nation is not crying like Cain when he shed Abel's blood, is not crying into the heart of God? The absolute travesty they've done with marriage. God created as an institution, marriage. And now I find that the divorce rate is going down because people just aren't getting married anymore. They're just living together and then when they get tired of that, they move on to the next one and on to the next one. There's no commitment.

Oh, and then we're confused on what sex we really are. I mean, and you think what's going on in Washington? That is as corrupt as corrupt can be. I don't care if it's the Republicans or the Democrats, left-wing, right-wing, it's the same bird. Jesus is going to come back, He's going to take us home, and He's going to straighten this thing out because what is going on not only in this nation but in the world demands His judgment because we think we're entitled.

This nation, can I say this tonight? We may not get through chapter 12. This nation was founded on four pillars. In the Psalms it said, "If the pillars of truth be removed, where will the righteous run?" Well, they've been removed. Do you understand the Founding Fathers weren't deists? That's visionary history. These were men of God. 29 of them were seminary-trained ministers. When we gave that little tour there in Independence Hall with the kids that went with us back east to help plant a church there in Pennsylvania, I had to take over the tour guide. The guy got upset with me, but I had to take it over because he was talking about these deists. They weren't deists!

You want me to go around a room and name who was in here? 29 of them were seminary-trained ministers. I said they started every session of Congress with two hours of prayer, they ended it with one of those 29 people giving the Word of God, a message to Congress. They sought the Lord on putting this document together. So then I said, "Well, you know, when you come into the building out front, there's the statue of Washington." And he goes, "Well, that's not the original statue." I said, "Of course it's not. That one's marble, the bronze one is over in City Hall. Who doesn't know that?"

But besides that, there's a statue that's a replica of the original sitting out front of Independence Hall that is there and it has Washington leaning with his right arm on a book that's lifted up on a pedestal and his left hand is on his sword. What is the book? He said, "Well, I suppose that it's the Law." I said it's the Word of God.

Then he said, "Well, I suppose you're going to quote a misquote of Washington that he said that no nation can be rightly governed without the Word of God." I said, "No, no, no, that is a misquote. What he actually said was no universe could be governed properly—universe—without the Word of God." See, he takes it a little further because he understands there's a God of order and where we're seeing this nation out of order, God's judgment will come.

The four pillars that those Founding Fathers built this nation on: number one, God is Creator. You go to any monument in Washington, D.C. and there's scripture written all over them. Our Founding Fathers knew when they created this nation, "One nation under God," they knew that God was the Creator.

Number two, the reason the Constitution is drafted like it is because, number two, God is the Sustainer. Listen, the government is not the sustainer, that's humanism. God is the Sustainer. It's to God we look for everything we have need of, not to the government. The government is corrupt, man cannot govern himself. God is our Sustainer.

The third of those pillars is that the Word of God is the only law that will bind men's heart to morality and so they esteemed the Word of God in a high place.

And then the last pillar they said, not only God Creator, God Sustainer, the Word of God as the only law that should govern the hearts of men, the fourth thing they said is that man is fallen. Man is corrupt. That's why all the checks and balances in government. Man is corrupt. They came away from a king that was corrupt and when they came here, they kicked him out. Take your king somewhere else, we have a King. Men are corrupt, men are fallen and they need to be redeemed. They need to be saved.

Those were the four pillars and you read it all the way through the Constitution, you can read it in the Bill of Rights. There's a guy that has a ministry and I would recommend it, David Barton, that has the largest private library of the writings of the Founding Fathers and it's amazing how their view of government came from the Word of God.

When they left Independence Hall, people were gathered outside saying, "What kind of government did you give us?" He said, "We gave you a republic if you can keep it." Because you're not going to be able to keep it as soon as corrupt politicians get in office and they promise you things and you vote to get free things because you're greedy and you've left the Word of God and the commandments of the Word of God, then that government will cease to exist and it's long since ceased to exist. America's not entitled to anything. We're only blessed when we bless the heart of our Creator.

What is necessary for this country is what was said in Chronicles 7:14: "If My people, called by My name, would humble themselves and pray, seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then from heaven would I hear and I'd heal their land." I've stopped praying for America but I'm praying for Americans. I'm praying for a Holy Ghost revival to sweep across this land like it did on the Day of Pentecost and convict men's hearts of their whorish ways. That it would break our hearts when we break His heart.

So that was verse 15. Man! Therefore say, "Thus saith the Lord, although I have cast them far among the heathen." Because Ezekiel early on cries out, Lord, He fell on his face, "If You continue to discipline them like You are, there's not going to be any of them left." So He says to Ezekiel, "Although I have cast them far off in this discipline among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary."

Now that word for "little" doesn't mean small in the idea that we would think. Now it can be interpreted small, but this particular Hebrew word can be interpreted more like short, a short space, a short time. In fact, this same word is used in Ruth, remember when we studied through Ruth, in Ruth chapter 2, verse 7, it says speaking of Ruth, "And she said, 'I pray you let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.' So she came and had continued even from morning until the evening that she tarried a little in the house." In other words, they had breaks there, they had water and food for the workers, but she only tarried there a little, a short space of time.

God has told them through the prophet Jeremiah, 70 years. Through Daniel, 70 years. You're going to be in captivity for 70 years. You need to submit to God's correction. You need to go and settle down in Babylon. God is using Nebuchadnezzar to discipline His people. He is the rod in God's hand. Do not resist him. If you resist him, he is going to level Jerusalem. And they did and He did have to level it, but God said, "I promise you there will always be a remnant, yet will I be to them a little sanctuary in the country where they shall come."

Therefore say, "Thus saith the Lord God." Now watch all of the "I wills." These are promises of God. I think there's like seven of them as we read through the rest of this chapter. God says, "I will even gather you from the people and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered."

You know, when you read prophecy, one of the things you understand about prophecy is there can be a near part of it and a far part of it. And of course, He did gather them back together out of Babylon, the country He had driven Judah to. We really don't know what happened to the ten northern tribes, that's why they're called the Lost Tribes. We're really not sure because the Assyrians had a practice where they kind of scattered things around, but we do know that after the 70 years, at least the two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, came back, rebuilt the temple, rebuilt the walls under Nehemiah, Ezra, Joshua the high priest, Zerubbabel, you read about that in Nehemiah.

But we do know they came back and were re-established in the land, but listen to what God says, but it could be what we're seeing today. Because they were scattered again, Titus Vespasian in 70 AD rode into Jerusalem in an uprising, destroyed the temple, burned it to the ground, and the Jews were scattered. They were scattered for 2,000 years.

But in the last days, God said Jerusalem will become a cup of trembling, it'll be a stone of stumbling to all nations round about it and everyone that involves itself with Jerusalem, I the Lord will cut into pieces. "I will restore My nation, I will put My people back in the land, and when they get back in the land, they will never leave again." I think this is a dual prophecy. It certainly happened at the end of the 70 years, but we've seen it happen in 1948 and then they retook Jerusalem in 1967.

But God said, "I will even gather you from the people and assemble you out of the countries where I have scattered you. I will give you the land of Israel and they shall come hither and they shall take away all of the detestable things thereof and all the abominable things thereof from thence. They're going to cleanse the land."

And again, you know, when we get to chapter 36 and the valley of the dry bones, that was in two stages. God called Ezekiel to prophesy and all the bones came together and they stood up and all of the flesh and muscle and skin came on and they were standing an exceeding great army, but there was no spirit of God in them. Israel today is standing, but there's no life in them. You go to Israel today, it's as secular as it is here.

But God's going to do something and I think it's going to come through Psalms 83 when those nations around attack and God shows up. Then they're going to mourn and then they're going to understand and then they're going to be filled with the Spirit.

And He says this in verse 19, "And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and I will give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes." What is necessary for us to walk in His statutes is not us to will it, it's us to have our hearts on an altar circumcised by the living God filled with His Spirit. Listen, when your heart is right, everything else gets right. When your heart is wrong, everything else gets wrong.

Listen, God sees the heart, He's after the heart. Do you love the Lord your God with all of your heart? Does it break your heart? So many people I deal with today repent because of the consequence. Are you broken that you ever transgressed His law?

You know, listen, I'm not doing anything today that would ever disqualify me from being a pastor, but those little foxes still show up and I'll tell you, I'm not upset by the consequences, I'm upset that that thing is still cooking in me after 46 years, that I can still have those attitudes, that I can still have those actions, I can still have those thoughts that I have to bring captive to the obedience of Christ. It breaks my heart when I break my Father's heart.

He said, "When I'm done, they will get rid of the detestable things, they will cleanse their heart and I'll put a new heart in them that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them and they shall be My people," it's relational, "and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads," saith the Lord God.

You see, God's looking for the heart. You know, Jesus taught a parable in Luke's Gospel, chapter 18, of two men who came into the temple to pray one day and one was a Pharisee, a very religious man, walked straight up to the front of the synagogue, looked straight up into the air and began to pray, "Lord, I thank You that I'm not like other men." That's proud, that's pride. Amen? "I'm not like other men and this is what I do. I pay my tithe, I pray three times a day," and he was just bragging about all he did.

And another man walks into the back, doesn't even come to the front, falls on his face, rents his garment, and cries out with a loud voice, "Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner." Broken for his sin. And Jesus said, "I tell you of a truth, the latter left more justified than the former." Because that man understood that what he did broke the heart of the Father and it broke his heart.

The Bible presupposes we're going to sin. You see it in the Levitical law. When you open up in Leviticus as God is setting up the priesthood, which is an example of Christ our high priest, the sacrifice is an example of Christ our sacrifice, the first sacrifices that He sets up is for sin and transgression. This is what you do when you do it.

I can't but imagine what it must have felt like when you brought that lamb. You've got to understand, they lived in an agrarian society, these were herdsmen, these were farmers and they watched that lamb be born and they understood that that lamb was innocent and they would have to take that lamb down to the Tabernacle and they would have to put their hands on the head of that lamb and they would have to confess their sin while the priest slit the throat of the lamb and they felt the life force and the pain and the suffering. They felt it, it was up close and personal what it cost for their transgression.

I can't but imagine, you know, if you're an animal lover, I grew up around animals. We had a small farm, I grew up on five acres. My dad was a farmer in Arkansas and when we moved to California, bought five acres. We had pigs and chickens and we had cows, milk cows, and we had garden and we had horses, we had all of that stuff. You get attached to those things.

How many have dogs that you love? Not just dogs, I want to qualify it, that you love. How would you feel if the next time you sinned, God said, "Now take that pet down to the church, put your hands on it, confess your sin while Pastor Mike slits its throat and you feel the life force bleed out of it?" Do you think you would have a different view of sin?

Well, God the Father had to watch His Son spill His blood for our sins. No wonder He says, "Do they think it's a light thing that they would do these detestable things?" To those who are broken-hearted and repent, man, I'm there full of grace, restoration. But those whose hearts walketh, they live after the heart of the detestable things, then listen, even the abominations, I will recompense upon their own heads their ways. It's the consequence of their sins.

Then He says in verse 22, "Then did the cherubim lift up their wings," watch this, "and the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel was over and above, and the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood upon the mountain which is in the east side of the city." Now there are rabbinical writings that tell us, and we can't verify it, it's not scripture, but there are rabbinical writings that tell us because the judgment, the destruction of Jerusalem will come about five years after this.

Nebuchadnezzar will come up the last time, 586, and he's going to level the place. He's going to level the temple, he's going to tear down the walls, he's going to destroy it. Most of the rabbinical writings say that that presence of God hovered up in the mountains for four years. They knew that God's presence had left the Holy Place, had gone out from the temple, out from the city, and was up in the mountains away from the city.

We can't verify that, but they say for up to four years, they saw the presence of God, what would represent the pillar of fire or the pillar of smoke out over the mountains, out of the city, out of the temple, gone. God was saying, "I can't be there anymore because of what you've done."

Then verse 24 says, "Afterwards, the spirit took me up, brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, back to the land of the captivities, back to my house. I'm seated there in front of the elders, so the vision that I had seen it went up from me, then I spake to them of the captivity of all the things which the Lord had shown me." So it's like his eyes come open and the guys are still sitting there in his house and he goes, "Whoa, let me tell you just what happened. You might have been tapping on my head saying, 'Where are you at? Are you in there still?' but I'm going to tell you what God just did and what God just said." And he begins to minister to them.

Now, we have time to do chapter 12. Chapter 12 is another section and it's another illustrated sermon. You know, the long-suffering of the Lord. The Bible tells us His spirit will not always strive with man, but He is long-suffering. He's still trying to get the attention of these knuckleheads. How many times as you look back over your life that God kept trying to get your attention, kept trying to get your attention, kept trying to get your attention, and finally He had to spank you to get your attention and finally get your attention? Any of us like that? Just me? Okay, just checking.

Because if you guys are already there, I'll just set up a mirror here and preach to me on Wednesday nights because I need it. "Then the word of the Lord also came unto me saying, 'Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house.'" Are we dwelling in the midst of a bunch of rebellious people? "'Which have eyes and they see not, which have ears and they hear not, for they are a rebellious house.'"

You know, I think it was Shakespeare that said, "There is none so blind as those who will not see." When we went through the book of Revelation on Sunday mornings and we came to chapter 2 and chapter 3 and as Jesus is giving those messages to the seven churches, did you notice at the end of one of those messages that He said, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church"?

God's Spirit is speaking today to the church. He's speaking through His word, He's speaking through the convicting work of the Spirit. Listen, He's speaking through pastors, He's speaking through teachers, He's speaking through prophets that He still has in the land that speak for Him and He's telling us in these last moments of time: you better get right, you better get your lamps trimmed, clean and bright. You better have extra oil, Jesus is coming back and He's coming back soon. You better get your house in order, you better be out there getting as many people as you can. We're hearing it everywhere.

Listen, Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice and they follow no other." How do we hear His voice? We hear it through the word, we're hearing it tonight. What is another way we hear it? Prayer. I was telling the men on Monday night that one of the things about prayer, and it's a lost skill to the church, it's a lost discipline, we don't know how to pray anymore. We think our prayers is, "Lord, bless me, bless me, bless me," and I'm out the door in the morning and I'll check in with You at night. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take," and off you go snoring. That is not prayer.

Prayer is when you wait upon the Lord. It's where you set aside a bulk of time and you lay your heart out before Him and you confess your sin as you come into His presence and then you come into His presence with joy and thanksgiving and then you wait. I was telling them in, sometimes it's hours I have to wait before God will speak to me.

I begin every prayer session when I'm by myself by going through some of the scriptures, putting the word in my heart, reminding me of the things, and then there's the repentance. "Lord, I'm struggling with this. Lord, I need help with that. Lord, I want You to cleanse my heart in this thing. Lord, I don't want to come into Your presence with an undivided heart. I want clean hands, I want a pure heart. I want to come into the Holy of Holies. Lord, I want to lay as it were my heart upon that altar. I need something from You. I need the coal, I need the presence, I need I need You."

As I'm going through that, there's a space where I will come to when I realize it's time to shut up and there's just a time to listen. Sometimes I'll sit there for quite a long time, sometimes it can be hours. There have been times in the evening, you know, I've set my heart to seek the Lord and it's night and I'm sitting there and nothing and I'll go to bed and it's all night long I'm in an attitude of prayer. I don't really sleep well, it's like God's presence is there and I'm trying to commune with Him and sometimes it's the next morning that I'll get up with my pad and pen and He begins to remind me of verses and scriptures, give me insight, wisdom, begins to answer my prayers and I begin to write them down.

We've lost that and yet that's what the Lord would want from us. We've gotten too busy. That's why Paul writes to the Hebrew people scattered, He says to them in chapter 12, "Lay aside every distraction and sin that does so easily beset you and run this race with endurance that's been set before you, looking unto Jesus." That's prayer. The author and the completer of your faith.

I'm telling you we're in a time of such spiritual warfare and I was telling the elders this, the only time I feel peace anymore is when I'm in prayer. Because as soon as I come out of prayer, it seems like the devil's ready to pound on me and my prayer life exponentially is off the charts nowadays.

He said, "They have eyes but they don't see. They have ears but they don't hear. It's because they are a rebellious house. Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for moving." He said, "Go get your stuff, start packing up, I want you to move. This is going to be an illustrated sermon because they better be packing up because they're going to be moving because I'm going to bring a sword upon this place. I'm going to bring famine and pestilence upon this place. I'm going to level this place because of their detestable things."

So here's another illustrated sermon. "So you go get your stuff and you start packing it up like you're going to move. Remove it by day in their sight, make sure they see you. That thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight. It may be that they will consider though they are a rebellious house." Maybe this illustrated message will get through to them, they would consider it.

"Then shalt thou bring forth verse 4 the stuff by day in their sight, the stuff by removing and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight as they go forth in captivity." This is going to be an example of what I'm going to do to them. The rest of them there are going to be led into Babylon and those who are not led into Babylon are going to die by the sword. And those who don't die by the sword are going to die by pestilence. And those that try to flee, I'm going to cast a net out and I'm going to capture them. You're not getting away from My discipline, is what He's saying.

Give them an illustrated sermon. Now can you imagine? Listen, the priests, the Pharisees, there was a proverb among the Pharisees that if a Pharisee's not married, he's robbing God of offspring. So Ezekiel, we can conclude, was married. Can you imagine this next section? Because God's going to tell him dig a hole in the wall of his house from the inside to the outside and then carry your stuff out through the hole. Can you imagine Mrs. Ezekiel said, "Have you lost your mind? I'm with you out there all that time building that model, laying on your side for so many days, laying on your other side for so many days, all this cutting your hair, doing—but now you're tearing down the house! And probably had children. Now the kids are going to run through the wall. You're going to teach them that it's okay to dig holes in the wall."

But Ezekiel, it says verse 5, "Dig thou through the wall in their sight, carry out thereby in their sight shall they bear it upon their shoulders, carry it forth in twilight. Thou shalt cover thy face." Now this is important because Zedekiah, which is called a prince—he's never called a king because he was the vassal king that was set up that rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar—he's going to cover his face and he's going to dig a hole in the wall of Jerusalem and he's going to try to escape.

So we're going to see in a few moments that God is going to say the people, "This is an example of what's going to happen to you. Cover your face that thou see not the ground for I have set thee for a sign," this is an example, "unto the house of Israel. And I did so as I was commanded. Got my pick out, man, I dug a hole in the wall. My wife over there going, 'What are you doing?' The kids probably helping out saying, 'Man, this is cool, Dad. Can we dig a hole too?'"

"I brought my stuff by day as stuff of captivity and in the evening I dig through the wall with my hand and I brought it forth in twilight and I bare it upon my shoulders in their sight." Just like God commanded me. "And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me saying, 'Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, that rebellious house, said unto thee, what in the world are you doing?'" He's got their full and undivided attention. This prophet has lost his mind. I mean, really?

Okay, Ezekiel, you dug through a hole in your house, you've carried your stuff out. What are you doing? And they said unto him, verse 10, "Say thou unto them, thus saith the Lord God, this burden concerneth the prince of Jerusalem." The prince of Jerusalem is Zedekiah. God never refers to him as a king, but he's the leader. He's the one that's telling the people don't listen to Jeremiah. Listen to the other prophets, the prophets that tell us that God's going to bring back Jehoiachin out of the captivity. God's going to crush Nebuchadnezzar and all the instruments of worship are coming back. We just need to stay here in Jerusalem, we'll be okay. This is our cauldron, we're the meat, we'll be protected here. False leader, listening to false prophets.

"And then you say to them," in verse 11 it says, "say, 'I am a sign,' this is an illustrated sermon, 'like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them. They shall remove and go into captivity. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight,'" and Zedekiah did just as the prophet said, "'shall go forth. They shall dig through the wall, they shall be carried out thereby and he shall cover his face so nobody knows who he is and he shall—he see not the ground with his eyes. My net,'" God said, "'also will I spread upon him and he shall be taken in My snare, and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans, yet shall he not see it though he shall be there.'"

It's interesting that they did capture him just north of Damascus, Zedekiah. They captured him and all of his generals and his mighty men and they captured, the Babylonians did, his sons. And Nebuchadnezzar put every one of his commanders to death in front of him, then he marched his sons in front of Zedekiah and put them to death, and after he'd put them to death, he put out his eyes so the last thing he would remember is the death of his sons. Now Nebuchadnezzar was God's man bringing about God's judgment to a people who would not listen. Having eyes they see not. "I want to put your eyes out and what you're going to see is the horror, the last thing you saw, because that's how My heart is breaking."

Then what verse were we on? 13? Only 13? No, okay. My net—yes it was—My net also will I bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans, yet shall he not see it though he shall be there. And I will scatter toward every wind all that is about him to help him and all of his bands and I will draw out the sword after them.

"And they shall know," watch this is repeated like five or six times through this section, "that they shall know that I am the Lord." God's doing this to bring them back, to bring them to their senses. "That they may know that I am the Lord when I have scattered them among the nations and dispersed them among the countries. But I will leave a few men among them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whether they go that they might repent and they shall know that I am the Lord."

"Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, 'Son of man, eat your bread with quaking and drink your water with trembling and with anxiety or carefulness or with extreme care.' Because you have not feared the Lord, I'm going to put fear in you." And so He says, "That's an example," the second illustrated sermon in this section. Not just dig through the wall and leave, but eat your bread with trembling.

"And say unto the people of the land, 'thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel, they shall eat their bread with anxiety and they shall drink their water with astonishment. That her land may be desolate from all of that is therein because of the violence of all that dwell therein. And the city that are inhabited shall be laid waste and the land shall be desolate and yea they shall know that I am the Lord.'"

"And the word of the Lord came to me again saying, 'Son of man, what is this proverb?'" We're going to have to leave off with this, but then we'll pick up from this but this is good. Verse 22, this is worth the wait. This is worth crossing your legs if you have to go to the bathroom, just wait for a moment. "Son of man, what is this proverb that I have heard in the land of Israel saying, 'The days are prolonged and every vision faileth'?"

Couple verses in 2 Peter in our time, Peter says, "In the last days knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, saying 'Where's the promise of His coming?'" "Oh, you're one of those prophecy nuts. You're one of those Bible thumpers. You're one of those Doomsday declaimers. You're one of those people that say we're in the end of the world." Yeah, we are. Look around, Ray Charles in his current condition can see we're at the end of it. Come on, really?

Because for the most part the church is failing to warn people. Ezekiel's going to speak to this issue because if you see someone sin a sin unto death and you don't warn them, their blood is going to be required at your hand, Ezekiel says. But he says knowing in the last days scoffers are going to come mocking our eschatology, mocking the whole doctrine of the rapture, the removal of the church and then the coming back for the judgment. They're going to mock the millennial reign. They're going to mock the great white throne judgment. They're going to mock.

They're going to say that, "Listen, God's not concerned. Hey, listen, we're God's people because we prayed some little prayer, we came up here and God loves us and it doesn't matter how we live, we can go..." No! And they'll mock you as a conservative, fundamental, Bible-believing Christian. One who rightly divides the Word of God. One who takes not just the promises of God to heart, and there's 3,000 of them, but we also take the warnings to heart. And we are warned by Jesus that you don't know the day or the hour, but there's indicators. Israel born as a nation, control of Jerusalem. When you see all of these things going on around that we're seeing, look up because your redemption draws near.

Listen, the stage is being set, economically it's being set. The things are in play right now to bring about a one-world government. The next thing to happen is the church is going to be removed. And I'm going to tell you how they're going to explain that? I figured it out. They can't explain it too many different ways. But have you seen lately the Pentagon is releasing all of this information on UFOs? You see, our space brothers are going to come and take us weirdo Christians out of the way because we're not progressive, you see? We can't get with the program, you see?

We're confused because we believe there's a man and a woman. We're confused because we believe that there should be marriage and there should be fidelity in marriage. Hey, we're confused because we believe that abortion is wrong and murder is incorrect and there ought to be... no. So the space brothers come and just beam us out of here. Well, beam me up, Jesus!

And I don't doubt they're not seeing these things. They're recording them. Jet fighter planes are trying to chase them and they can be here one moment and there the next and they move at a rate of speed that no machine can because they're not machines. They're angelic hosts. They're fallen angels to deceive. You have to explain to a world when millions of people are gone. Can you imagine as bad as it is now? You wait till the salt light is gone. Can you imagine when everyone's a Democrat?

You better get right because you don't want to get left. Because if you get left, you're going to be with the left and it ain't going to be fun. This is what He's saying. Listen, they're saying that this stuff isn't going to happen. Judgment isn't coming. The visions fail, we're okay, you're okay. And yet we're told in the last days scoffers will come saying, "Where's the promise of His coming?" For since our fathers have fallen asleep, all things have continued even as they were from the beginning of creation.

I find it extremely interesting that most theological seminaries today have bought into this thing of uniformitarianism. They don't believe—what we call it amillennialism—that nothing's going to change. We're just going to go swimmingly well. There is no rapture, God interrupting human history again, there's no removal of the church, there's no seven-year tribulation, there's no God coming back with His church to set things right here on earth and there is no millennial reign. I got news for them: the Bible declares it clearly.

In Matthew 24, let's get some Jesus words in here. Matthew 24, verses 48 through 51 says this, "But if an evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth his coming, and he shall begin to smite his fellow servants, live corruptly, and eat and drink and be drunken, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour that he is not aware and he shall cut him asunder and appoint him the portion among the hypocrites and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

You think Jesus hasn't warned us about this? I can go on ad nauseam the scriptures that warn us. The indicators in prophecy that we're living in the last days. You see, there was a sense of entitlement because they were God's people and they felt like because they were God's people and they had inherited the Promised Land and especially Jerusalem, they could live anyway they wanted and God didn't see and God didn't care. And God says, "No, no, no, it breaks My heart and it's not a light thing. And just because I haven't come quickly, I've warned you for 100 years, doesn't mean I'm not coming. And now you are saying that the prophecies fail."

What is this proverb I'm hearing God says? Listen to verse 23. Tell them, therefore, thus saith the Lord God: "I will make this proverb to cease and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel, but say unto them the days are at hand and the effect will be the effect of every vision," and the idea is, will come to pass and we'll pick up there.

Listen, we ought to warn people. The dollar's collapsing. You have to collapse the dollar to go to a different currency, a one-world currency for a one-world government to control the earth. The military is collapsing. The players in prophecy, which are Russia and China, are coming to the fore and the young lions of Tarshish—Canada, America, Australia, Britain—are going down. There's a food shortage coming, famine. When you look at the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Antichrist comes, then there's war, then there's famine, then there's death. That's tribulation.

The scene is being set whether you realize it or not. Something's going to set it off. And if this negotiation that's going on with China and Russia on our behalf with Iran for their nuclear deal and they get a nuclear weapon, it's over. Israel's going to take it out, the Middle East is going to blow up. Those ten nations that Daniel talks about will attack Israel. When the smoke settles and the dust clears, you're going to find, or the vice versa, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, you're going to find that God has showed up and the whole Middle East will be in turmoil and the church will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb and God will bring judgment upon this Christ-rejecting, immoral, violent, blood-shedding planet that has broken His heart.

And He will be right to do it. Amen? Because has He not been crying long and loud? I, you know, the other day I was just thinking, Lord, why would You use somebody like me? I mean, I got people emailing me from all over the United States. I had a guy from Monrovia email me this last week that's been listening to our program. Us, here in little Po Dunk Grass Valley. Ottawa, Ontario, a guy says, "Man, I listened to you on Brin Call, went to your website," he said, "I just listen to you and I weep. Is there a church like that up here?"

I don't know about Canadians, eh? They're kind of weird anyway, aren't they? I have a friend that's a Canadian, he is weird. If you're listening, brother, miss you. I don't know, but I know this: whether people listen or don't listen, I want to be a prophet in these last days that speaks for the Lord. And if you're a man that speaks for the Lord and don't compromise His word, you know what? He'll take that around the world because He wants people to be warned. This thing is winding down.

How many more babies have to be aborted? How many more people have to say that that's a right? It's insane. It's insane. Amen? But it won't be insane much longer for you and me. Correct? You know why? We're going to be dining with Dad. We'll be in the mezzanine looking down. We're going to be home in our Father's house. Amen.

Is He your Father? Is He your God? Is He your Creator? Is His Son, the second person of the Trinity, is He your Savior and is He your Lord? Is the Holy Spirit set up residence in you and do you fear the Word of God? Do you love it and do you, when I'm talking about fearing it, want to be obedient to it? Then man, you ain't going to be here much longer. Let's stand, we'll pray.

Father, thank You for prophets like Ezekiel. But you know, early on, Father, as a Christian, I would have to say that most of my repenting was for the consequences. I mean, I was born again, filled with the Spirit. I knew what Your word said, at least I was learning what Your word said, but I would be broken over the consequences that would come because it just felt like You kept me on a short leash. Man, it seemed like You were behind every tree and if I got out of line, You smacked me.

And I look back and I want to thank You for that. I want to thank You for that. But Lord, nowadays, as a mature Christian, it breaks my heart when I break Yours. It's not about the consequences, it really isn't. It's about the fact that I know that I have grieved You, I've wounded You, I've hurt You. I've quenched the Spirit, I've grieved the Spirit. I've taken what Jesus did on Calvary's cross as a light thing and I've had a mind of and mentality sometimes of entitlement. Well, I'm a Christian, I'm saved by grace.

And then I forget that I break Your heart. Lord, put the fear of God in us, the fear to ever break Your heart again. And may our repentance never be about the consequence, may it be about the fact that we were capable of doing that thing that hurt You, so that we don't do it anymore. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And all God's kids would say, amen.