Ezekiel 23-24

Introduction

Our lesson tonight is in Ezekiel chapters 23 and 24. Virginia workbook is lesson number, I think was 14, 14. Good to see each of you. I think there may be just a couple of you may not have been here Sunday, but I think it’s always good to try to tie together the chapters uh beforehand. And uh in fact uh Ezekiel through these twenty-four chapters has had pretty much a similar message, hasn’t he, over and over again? He has approached it from one point of view to another illustration or a parable, and basically the message has been pardon? What’s gonna happen to Jerusalem? Jerusalem. And the reason why it’s gonna happen to Jerusalem is turned away. How many times and how many ways has he described their sins?

You know, I was thinking about in preparation today. Sometimes we we uh in modern our generation, I’ll just say how they in age. The common emphasis uh uh among many uh denominations has been on the grace of God and the love of God. And uh I believe it’s the same God of today that was ruling even the time of Ezekiel, don’t you think? How do you put together the text that we’ve been reading in Ezekiel with the love of God and the grace of God? Did God love him? Yes, yes. Was he full of grace with him? Yes. Well, does it sound like it? Yes, yes, all right. Explain that. I’m glad you’re answering that so firmly. But you know, a lot of people think the God of uh the old testament is a god of uh uh anger and and like vengeance and Ezekiel’s God and they have disobeyed him, they uh like slapped him in the face, so to speak.

They’ve done everything to him and against his name, they’ve shamed him, they’ve done everything they can. Uh willing will willfully have their idols, they have their idols, they didn’t know. Doesn’t grace mean undeserved favor? Unmerited. Pardon? Unmerited. Unmerited favor, undeserved, unmerited. So uh so why doesn’t God love them then and and overlook all of this? But he does.

They have a chance to turn back down. So really grace involves obedience. Obedience doesn’t nullify grace. You see, you’d be surprised how many people think in terms that that if we must obey, that nullifies grace. There’s works and works are opposed to grace, isn’t it? Yeah, we still gotta try. All right.

You know, I’m I’m saying all this that according to the kind of thinking that so often is preached today and taught today, and a lot of people think, well, it really doesn’t matter so much what we do, because God is full of love and God is full of grace. But when you make you make those kind of uh statements that are applied to today, and you think, well, is it really the same God that was acting with vengeance against uh against Jerusalem? The book of Ezekiel is a book that really I think, and as well as others of even the old testament, that certainly illustrates the point that if if indeed we love God who loves us, obedience is involved, isn’t it? Yes, you can’t just ignore God, as you said, willfully disobey him.

And that’s what really Ezekiel has pointed out over and over again in these first 24 chapters. In addition, I know that the Lord has said, How do I know you love me? Because you do the things I tell you. Right. They didn’t do that. That’s right. So, but they were religious, weren’t they? Weren’t they? Yes. Our lesson of night, in fact. He says, at the very same time that you came to worship me, you were also worshiping. Yeah, Molech. So they were doing both. I mean, that’s really adding on righteousness on top of righteousness, isn’t it? Is it? But it’s their way of saying, hey, you know, we’re going to be right with every God there is. Let’s touch all bases, type of thing. Can’t lose, they think.

1. The Sword Sharpened Against Jerusalem

But it is impossible to ignore God’s way and God’s will. Alright, let’s look at our questions on page 54 to kind of summarize and bring us up to the uh the lesson for tonight. Uh in chapters 21 and 22, really, the questions raise. Number one, in what direction was Ezekiel to set his face and prophesy against? South Jerusalem. Towards Jerusalem. Alright. He had said earlier in the latter part of chapter 20, it talked about the South, but now he is specific in uh as you start chapter 21 that he’s talking about Jerusalem. So toward Jerusalem, and preach against uh the holy places and prophesy against the the land of Israel, verse 2 of chapter 21. How would Ezekiel answer why he was sighing or groaning or crying, really?

Alright. Because of the news. What was he going to be preaching? And it says something about Ezekiel. We’ve already pointed out about what age would he have been at this point in his life, probably. Early 30, maybe 31 or two by this point. But uh though he speaks about the people that he lives with, he is he loves them. And he’s concerned about them. It’s not just Yppy, I’m telling I’m getting you told because you’re so wicked. We’re not careful. We need to be uh guard our own hearts, you know. We may say people who are not obeying the Lord, but there still should be caring and mercy and love. And that while we may say, look, what you’re doing is against the will of God or without Bible authority, and you continue this, and you’ll have the wrath of God upon you.

But you don’t say that with uh arrogance or self-righteousness, there will be a sense of caring. That hey, we need to talk about our differences, and let’s see what the Bible says. And let’s not just be deceived into thinking it doesn’t matter, because it really does matter with God. So Ezekiel indeed was growing a sign. Number three, for what purpose was the sword sharpened and furbished? The sword was going to illustrate what from God? Sloth. Alright. Vengeance against and because of the wickedness. So it’s it is sharpened to do what? Sharpening. Alright, all right. It’ll be effective in accomplishing uh God’s will in in punishing, and it’ll it’ll be uh refurbished or shining. That it may glittering. Alright, that it may glitter, you know, that that indeed uh flash like lightning.

In fact, I think the scripture there says in uh chapter 21 and verse 10. And number four, into what two places was the sword of Babylon to come? Rabbah of the Ammonites or Judah in Jerusalem. And of course they they got to the top and I put up here how that they said, oh, there is the number. Nebuchadnezzar, the false prophets were saying he deserves to come to Ammon. That’s where he’s headed. He’s really headed to Rabbah. He doesn’t really need to come to Jerusalem because you know we’re pretty good people, and the temple is here, and the Zedekiah is still reigning, the throne of David is here, he wouldn’t come here, and that’s how the people believed. You know, well, that really made sense. If uh if you understand that, you know, God’s uh God has promised the throne of David would stand, right?

Yeah, like politicians today, and they believed what they want to believe. And in fact, uh their thinking was that even if and when they did find out that he did uh pull the arrow out and it said Jerusalem, well, come on down because I mean we will still guard the city, and besides that, we’re gonna seek Egypt’s help, and Egypt to come up. And so it was kind of again a self-deception that as though we’ll be protected and we’ll stand. Jerusalem will not fall. The temple will not be destroyed, was there it was their heart and thinking. Number five, the crown, and this is a point, it would involve Zedekiah here. So the crown would be taken off until when?

Until the one to whom it’s it, whose right it is. Uh chapter 21 and verse 27. Now, whose right is it? Alright, the Messiah, the coming of the Christ. And and you know, uh when Zedekiah was taken captive, was the throne into existence? And this is a point that you know you have an opportunity in a study like this. A lot of people overlook the fact that you know there were several years before the throne of David was re-established. The tabernacle of David was re-established. Amos spoke about it in Amos chapter 9. And yet it was at a time. That uh indeed the whose right it is is the right of of the Son of God. But that throne, literally, no one was sitting on the throne in Jerusalem.

But nevertheless, the throne is the right of the Son of God of Jesus Christ. Question number six. Judah would be carried into exile, but what would happen to Ammon?

Well, and shall no more be remembered. And asked, would it be remembered or not? No. Where is where is Rabbah today? Where are the Ammonites today? They’re not on the map, really, are they? Number seven, and what was Jerusalem guilty and defiled? They were guilty? Shedding blood. Alright, by the blood that shed and defiled with the idols that you have made. Verse chapter 22, we’re into. Number eight, where did God promise to scatter and disperse Judah?

And throughout the countries. Did that happen? Absolutely has. Number nine, how would they know the Lord had poured out his fury upon them? To be consumed by the fire of judgment. Yeah. It’ll be like what? As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, you shall be melted. It’s quite a description. Over and over in chapter 2, he spoke about in you, in Jerusalem. All kinds of evil and sins have been committed in Jerusalem, is the emphasis in chapter 22. So the Lord indeed would they would become as the dross, as the refuge. When’s when gold and silver is purified, it’s purified by fire. But what’s left over? And so it’s that it instead of them becoming the gold of the silver, purified and beautiful and war and and and uh worthy of wealth or riches, yet they were just the opposite.

2. A Man to Stand in the Gap

Number 10, what did the Lord seek for yet did not find, yet found none? Or the one sought for a man to stand in the gap? To stand in the gap, make up the hedge.

Stand for someone who would really stand up for righteousness. Well I wondered about this when I answered the question. He had Ezekiel. Yes. And and yet, you know, perhaps he’s thinking not just sing a single man. Could it be that he is seeking for someone maybe even as a ruler that he could say, I’m looking for a Zedekiah to stand? I’m looking for our leader to stand. Here was Ezekiel as a prophet. And and indeed a man of influence, a man who would really stand up for me. But did he find that in uh Judah at that point in time? In fact, I think it’s important, and our questions don’t cover it so much, as in the last few verses of chapter uh twenty two. Who was it that were not standing?

I mean, I mean, uh, that’s kind of poorly a worded question. Who does he blame for the condition that Judah was in? Who does he blame? Who would be the spokesman of God and around speaking? The prophets. Who should teach the law but was not teaching it? The priests. Who stood in uh the civil government as the leader of the people? Princes allowed it uh even ungodly things to go un uh unpunished. So it would be the king, and therefore he really mentions these segments as he closes chapter 22 from the prophets who have only built walls that were untempered, and uh and the the priest who really had not distinguished between the holy and the unholy. They had made a you know in their compromising uh they have really profane God’s name and God’s way, and then of course there are the princes or the king, who who indeed also allowed oppressions and robbery and and dishonesty to go on.

Could history repeat that? Does that happen in our day? We’re not careful, you know. We we are a people who come to lessons like this, and while it is true of Ezekiel, say we need to say, Well, how about our day? And where do we stand in the midst of this? And let’s learn lessons from the past because history does have a way of repeating itself. True or false God would cut off only the wicked? False. Why would he cut off the righteous? Because they might be better off. They may be taken from the evil. That was without seeing the evil that would be occurring then. But yes, and another point about that it was death, the end of all things. There will be death, but that’s not the last thing.

You know, that’s not the worst thing that can happen. So even if the righteous die, that doesn’t mean that they’ve really lost or perished, but rather they’re cut off from the evil that would be yet to occur. Number two, the sword was coming on the princes of Babylon. False. That’s false too. That’s on all the people, right? Jerusalem would be mocked by those far and near. True. And that’s a sad statement. Instead of standing for righteousness, they became really the mockery of those who would serve their God. That’s the way it is. God said Judah has forgotten me. True.

3. A Parable of Two Immoral Sisters

Number five, finally, and enumerating Judah’s sins, the prophets, priests, princes, and people of the land. We’re all guilty. That’s true. Alright, in chapter 23, now we come to a parable of two immoral sisters. And uh, you know, when you read uh you’d have to say, in in language of deep uh disgust uh uh comes from Ezekiel, no doubt, a man who loved his people, but despises the mistreatment that of the Lord and the profaning of his honor. And and indeed uh he describes their spiritual adultery. That’s what he’s going on. He calls them by name. There are two women, daughters of one mother, that committed harlotry, verse two would say, in e verse three in Egypt, committed harlotry in their youth. Their names? Ahulah. Ahola. Aholobah?

Her sister. Ahola represented what city? Samaria and Aholbah. Jerusalem. I wonder if any of you caught the mistake in my book. Yeah.

Well, no, I got the wrong name. I had uh the the mother of uh I said the very Samaria was the capital of Israel, the ten northern tribes and is here called Aholaba. But she was a hola. So you sure did upset me. I really wondered if you caught it. I’m asking that to see if anybody read. Oh read the book.

Three books. Yeah. I had one of the young teenagers here came up with one of those books there having, of course, and uh and I suppose I didn’t write all the books on the discovery guide, but do you see this misspelled word? I said, yeah, we put those in there to see if we study any lesson. But nevertheless, uh what what is God saying in this parable? Basically, I mean, you got an opinion, what’s the bottom line of it? Jerusalem is the pot. The way I understood it. Is the what? Jerusalem is the pot. Is the pot. And the sins are what’s in the pot. Yeah, well, you’re into chapter 24 on that one. Oh. Yeah. Chapter 23 of being a hola and a holebah. What’s the point of that?

What’s the parable about? It’s about sin.

Oh worse than another. Which one was the worst? Oh. Jerusalem. Jerusalem, all right. Judah. Alright. Was Samaria bad? Yes. And because Samaria turn to Assyria. Who was her lover? Assyria. Assyria. Assyria. In what way did these women seek out? Why would you say Assyria was Samaria’s lover? What did she do? Worship her idols. Alright, she worshipped her idols. And did she not seek Assyria’s help, you know? In a time, for example, uh, whenever even uh Samaria, if there was any problem, looked like it was coming on, they would turn to these countries and pay tribute. Judah and Israel did that. Both of them did, and I was going to start, that’s right, not just Samaria. But it’s in that sense that they appealed. Instead of turning with faith to the Lord, we’re going to seek your help, and we’ll pay you money to come.

And you know, we will not uh turn away from you, but we’ll turn to you. It always backfired because Assyria did finally what? Take them into captivity. But as you go through these, uh, and in verse 5, I’m gonna kind of do some skipping in chapter 23. Ahola played the harlot even though she was mine. These were gods. Yes, they were gods, they were as his brides, right? And yet they played the harlots. She lusted for her lovers, the neighboring Assyrians. And uh she committed, she said uh uh verse six and describe what appealed to them. You know, what meets the eye? Well, they were clothed in purple, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. She committed her harlotry with them, all of them choice men of Assyria.

With all for whom she lusted with all their idols, she defiled herself. Now I’m going to ask you, how is that? Do you get a sense in what how was she turned to idolatry? Why why are these words? What is there in these verses here that would say she she was drawn by what the eye could see and what the hand could hold, and the things that had to do with the immediate pleasures, right? Do we sometimes look around and we kind of fail to really measure those things that are the spiritual and are eternal in their nature?

I would just say at this time of year, where did the thousands go? Yeah. You talk about football stadiums there filled. People who probably have nothing to do with religion at all. I was making a comment before we started class here, just two or three of us yesterday. I heard the comment being made in response to the shooting in uh in Navy Yard. And of course, there’s always the talk now about, you know, who was the man, what was his background, etc. etc. And a lot about gun control. But the comment was made how many, we talk about is it mental illness or not? The comment was made of the young people today, and I don’t know if this statistic is true, but nevertheless I heard it that 70% of teenagers today have never even been in a church building.

Can you believe that? Because the comment was 70% is a pretty high percentage. They do not know what they do not know. So you know, they they have no idea. They they and if some of them did go to a church building, it may be a church building that simply is drawing to the physical to the social. I was commenting also today, excuse me, just me and I call on you. That today’s paper talked about a church building in Claremont that the city is going to try to buy. Did you see it? And because the church had a balloon note of seven million dollars that it couldn’t come up with, so the city is going to try to buy it for 6.3 million. Now, why would a city want to buy this church building?

It had a big swimming pool. Nice gymnasium, largest auditorium, and 29 acres that have yet to be developed. That sound like a church. Why would that be a church of today? A Miss Mega Church. And I’m saying that’s just an illustration, and that’s not only in Claremont. That happens a lot of places. And people like, I’ve been the church. What has drawn people to those? They become mega churches. These very items draw people with what? Entertainment. Entertainment. Things that have to do. And look how glorious is. It appeals to the flesh. Alright. And that’s where a lot of churches, so-called today are appealing to the flesh. Alright. Is that much the same as happening here? What was appealing to a hola and a holiday? It was things that appeal to the flesh.

Look, look at how these generals dress. Look at the horses they ride on. Look at the and and as you describe these things, there are things that appeal to the flesh. Alright, I’m sorry. No, Brother Harkin, I was gonna say, my family watches soccer, so we watch a lot of European TV. They’re very brazen. Soccer is the religion. It is set on TV and it’s set on just about weekly. Yeah, that soccer is the religion. Oh, absolutely. That’s right. And I didn’t work, I didn’t make that term up. They use it really. Not for everybody. Somebody else may worship the entertainment child. Absolutely. You know, Disney or Hollywood and things like that. But I’m just saying, we can be drawn by the things that appeal to the flesh, is the point I was trying to make.

That really haven’t even entered the church building. Don’t know anything about the word of God. And no, I mean it’s not idols like we normally think of an idol as an image we bow down in front of. But I want you to get the point even here when we say, yeah, they turned to Assyria and their idolatry. And what sense was that idolatry? Yeah, it did involve maybe worshiping some gods other than the one true God. Weird. But here we are in application. Now I want to look at verse 9 of chapter 22. Therefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians for whom she lusted. Yes. They uncovered her nakedness, took away her sons and daughters, and slew her with the sword.

We’re on page 56, 57. And so, Rita, what is he saying here? She went to them because they she was drawn. She drew them, but in effect, her love is turned against her. And then in fact, um Assyria took her into captivity. So it wasn’t really all uh what she would have expected. Now, in verse 11, although her sister Aholobah saw this. She became more corrupt in her lust than she. And in her harlotry, more corrupt than her sisters. Harlotry. You know, you’ve got to learn a lesson, right? You’d think the southern kingdom, it was over a little over a hundred years after Samaria was taken into captivity, that Judah had every opportunity to repent to learn the lesson. But Judah was worse than her sister.

And verse 12, she lusted for the neighboring Assyrians also. You know. You might have said, well, she might have said, okay, Assyria really proved to be an enemy. We’ll not turn to Assyria. We’ll turn to some other place. But instead, she followed the same, and she got worse because even after Assyria, who else did she turn to? Back in verse 16, as soon as her eyes saw them, she lusted for them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. For the Babylonians now. Verse 17, then the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their immorality. So she was defiled by them and alienated herself from them. She revealed her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness. Then I alienated myself from her.

As I had alienated myself from her sister. God cut them off. That’s what that means, isn’t it? Yeah. So then in verse 19, she multiplied her harlotry and calling to remembrance the days of her youth when she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. So then we have a third nation or country, you might say, that is involved. She listed for her paramours, her whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys, whose issue is like the issue of horses. Verse 21. Thus you call to remembrance the lewdness of your youth when the Egyptians pressed your bosom because of your youthful breast. In verse 22, therefore, O Holobah, thus says the Lord, Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you. And dropping down to verse 23, who does he name?

The Babylonians, all the Chaldeans, all the Assyrians with them. And indeed they shall come, verse 24, against you with chariots, wagons, war horses, with a horde of people, they shall array against you buckler, shield, helmet, all around. Verse 25. I like this one. I will set my jealousy against you, and they shall deal furiously with you. You mean God is jealous? Made that point while ago, Ed. God is a jealous God. He is a God of grace. He is a God of love. But he wants people to respond to him and to love him. And he is jealous for that in the good sense. There’s jealousy in the righteous sense. That as there is one God, so that ought to be the desire of our heart.

And don’t try to spread out over others.

4. You Have Forgotten Me

In verse 27, thus I will make you cease your lewdness, your harlotry, brought from the land of Egypt, so that you will not lift your eyes to them nor remember Egypt anymore. Verse 30 says, Why? Verse 30 says, I will do these things to you because you have gone as a herlot after the Gentiles, because you have become defiled by them. Verse 35 kind of again summarizes it, because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back. Therefore you shall bear the penalty of your lewdness and your harlotry. That’s a pretty pretty hard statement, isn’t it? Had they really forgotten God? You mean they didn’t remember him at all? Not well, the point I’m trying to make. You think we use the word forgotten as though I don’t have anything to do with him.

Was that true? No, that wasn’t true at all. Propping down, look at verse 38 and 39. Moreover, they have done this to me. They have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profane my Sabbath. For after they had slain their children for their idols, on the same day, they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And indeed, this thus they have done in the midst of my house. Could you say they had nothing to do with God? No, on the same day, you know.

So how had they forgotten God then? Yes, all right, Damon. Well, worship is giving our time and our praise to God. Right. Can we simplify this? When we give our time to anything to sports, um anything, you know, just TV reading, reading books on the that isn’t that what? I mean, we can read and we can watch sports, but God wants more of our time to worship him and to do what he has in mind for us. Is that is it too much of a story?

Let me follow that with the question I was just raising. If you remember God, in the sense he said they have forgotten me, what were they doing for that term to be said of them? If you remember God, are you going to do his will in his way? Put it simply. So they had forgotten God. Not that they didn’t know who he or remember at all, it’s just that they wanted to add the imagination of their heart to what God had said. It’s kind of like, yeah, I believe in God, and I’m going to do this also. You know. And so it was a we forget God when we refuse to obey him without additions or subtractions. If you want to remember God, you’re going to do what he says and the way he said it, without any alteration.

But they had forgotten God because they were turning to the idols as well as trying to serve God. Powerful statement, I think, when he says, on the same day you did both. That’s horrible to think. And finally, in verse 45, and the bell’s going to ring on me, but don’t keep moving. But righteous men will judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands. As he goes on down these next few verses as you close chapter 23, verse 47, the assembly shall stone them with stones, execute them with their swords, they shall slay their sons and their daughters, burn their houses with fire. I’ll cause lewdness to cease from the land that all women may be taught not to practice your lewdness.

They shall repay you for your lewdness, and you shall pay for your idolatrous sins. Then this familiar statement, you shall know that I am.

You pay your lovers. So over and over, here is different kinds of ways of trying to say God is just in destroying this as a people and as a land. Amen. He measures the hearts of people. And I mean he says that over and over in Isaiah and Jeremiah, test the heart to check the wicked. I couldn’t help but when I read this chapter, read John chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. Okay. And in the very act, when everybody is gone, he says, Women, where are your accusers? And he said, There are none, neither do I accuse you. Go your way and sin no more. He measured that woman’s heart. As he measured these people’s heart. And these people were found lacking because they had no heart for God.

5. The Rusty Old Cauldron

And he was measuring those who wanted to cast stones. Absolutely. They were the ones who really had the wrong heart. Absolutely. In chapter 24, there are two different uh lessons here. There, and when I say two different lessons, uh we we have two signs. There’s the rusty old cauldron, the pot, and there’s the death of Ezekiel’s wife. First of all, in the first 14 verses, uh he he talks about the cauldron. And a very significant point to mark in verse 22 in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, write down the name of the day, this very day.

And so look, that’s what I put up here last week when we’re trying to get some of the dates in our mind. On this very day. And 2 Kings 25 confirms it, doesn’t he? How? How would Ezekiel have known that? He’s 300 miles away. Divine inspiration. Alright. And then later, when the word comes to him, and when we get to chapter 33, the word comes to him in the 12th year of the time. You might say another 18 months later. But when the messenger brings the word, what does it do to prove about Ezekiel? What does it prove about Ezekiel? He had to be inspired. How else could he have? And that’s why he said, Write down, write it down. You won’t have to say, well, yeah, you know, I already talked about that later.

You know, he wrote it down. So there’s evidence. How else could he have known? They didn’t have the internet then or the phones like we have, so it had to be by the inspiration of God. Jeremiah sent him a letter. Jeremiah sent him a letter? Who sent it over there? There was no mail delivery.

Well, Ezekiel, uh, in this first story, he got a pot, he got a rusty pot. And he filled it with water, verse 3. And then he set it on fire and built a pretty strong fire, right? What do you think this illustrates? And why uh well, why is this illustrating? He talks about putting in, uh he takes an animal, he cuts it up, puts it in the pot, and and then uh uh the the fire is burning, and and later they take the one piece out and the other piece out of the pot. What does that illustrate to you as you read it? The dispersion was it? Would you say it’s kind of the same lesson in another illustration? What’s going to happen to Jerusalem? Destroyed.

What back in chapter 11, I think it was. You remember one of the things they took confidence in that they would not be destroyed because they were the cauldron. Remember that? I believe uh, let me see if I can chapter 11 and verse 3, I believe it is.

It was that it was one of the earlier times where we talked about why they had confidence, they would not be taken. In chapter 11, verse 2, he said to me, Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, give wicked counsel in this city, who say the time is not here to build houses. This city is the cauldron, and we are the meat. It was kind of and we talked about it then where the these false prophets were saying, Don’t worry, the time is not now, it’s not gonna happen here. And one of the reasons is we’re the cauldron as though this is going to be protection for us. So I think it’s significant that here he comes back to using that very sign.

So there is a cauldron here. Here’s a pot. But does it illustrate destruction or safety?

Destruction, doesn’t it? He snatches pieces of meat out of the out of the pot, and and as though to say indiscriminately.

Uh even as we had in the last lesson, even the righteous with the wicked. So they were different ones that would be taken that were involved in being uh this into this pot. But then finally, even when he comes to about verses 12 through 14, he takes this pot and does what to it? Purifies because it’s still filled with with rust and sludge, and and so let’s really burn it and purify it completely. So, as these people are taken away and the temple is destroyed, is there a sense of purification going on? Yes. They came back and did build the temple again, although it was weeping it, even those who could remember it the first time. Yet there was a purification. It is significant that even though they came back and they still had some problems when you read Malachi and Hosea and Zachariah.

6. The Death of Ezekiel’s Wife

They had some problems as they came back, but they didn’t commit idolatry again. They were cured of their idolatry. So in that sense, there was a sense of purification. Yes, they had some problems. Haggai and Zechariah, I get the words right. Haggai, Zachariah, not Hosea. Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi, particularly of the period of that period of the rebuilding of the temple. But again, it is a message to God’s people. Don’t take confidence, you’re the in the cauldron, and you’re going to be alright because God will cook what’s in the pot, and it’ll be dispersed as well. Then there’s a sign about Ezekiel’s wife. How old was her? Was it his wife? We don’t know anything more. How long had they been married? Nothing more. Did they have children?

I don’t know. About all we know, what did Ezekiel think about her? It was the desire of his eyes. Oh, that was the way the Bible pictures. And so uh uh and what caused her death? Has she been ill? We don’t know. All right. So what’s the point of that? What’s the point of her death? And he would not mourn or weep. What was it to be? How did that serve as a sign? It was a sign of it. In what sense could it be a sign? So astounding. You mean your wife, the one you really love, the desire of your eyes, and you you really don’t cry? Could it be sometimes it’s just so overwhelming, astounding, that there’s not the display of emotion at that point in time?

They’re going to ask him, Why aren’t you crying, right? And it is a sign to say, When Jerusalem falls, you’re going to be shocked. You’re going to be so astounded. You’re going to think, How could this have happened? You don’t think it will, but it will. And just like my wife died. Yes. Maybe I’m so astounded and shocked. Yet there is not the emotional display at that point in time. Think about it. I believe that’s really kind of the point. We’ll talk about that a little bit more. I’m watching that talk up there.