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- Okay we are going to pray and then we're going to get into our study. Lord Jesus as we open up your word we ask your
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- Holy Spirit to rightly understand what is revealed there so that we may properly believe confess and do all according to your holy word we ask in Jesus name amen.
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- All right we are in Ezekiel chapter 33 we're up to verse 21 and you'll note this is going to be a fulfillment of earlier prophecies in the book.
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- You'll remember when Ezekiel was commanded by God to lay on his side cook bread over dung and basically set up a miniature of Jerusalem and and the siege ramps and stuff like this and all of that was to prophesy that Jerusalem would eventually fall.
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- It hadn't fallen for good at up to this point and so it says in the 12th year of our exile in the 10th month on the fifth day of the month a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and said the city has been struck down.
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- That would be prophecy fulfilled and you'll note Ezekiel did not give silly prophecies like God says in this next season there'll be breakthroughs and suddenlies that he actually gave for real prophecies with very specific details and things that God told him would happen have now occurred.
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- So now the hand of Yahweh had been upon me and the evening before the fugitive came and he had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning so my mouth was opened and I was no longer mute.
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- The word of Yahweh came to me son of man the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying
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- Abraham was only one man yet he possessed he got possession of the land but we are many and the land has surely given us given us to possess therefore say to them thus says the
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- Lord Yahweh because you'll note what they're doing here is they're basically taking their logic and then flipping things to kind of talk about their misery so therefore say to them thus says the
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- Lord Yahweh you eat flesh with blood you lift up your eyes to your idols and you shed blood shall you then possess the land?
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- You know it sounds a lot like my mom. Hang on a second let's see if I can work this out. I told you that you needed to do your homework and you didn't do your homework and you're asking me if you can go to the movies with your friends.
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- The answer is no! You want to go to the movies with your friends and you want to hang out with them?
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- Do your homework! Okay she said it like that though she always sounded like she was passing a kidney stone but that's a whole other story.
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- My mom needed psychological help after raising me but you get the point here so God is basically saying
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- I told you guys going into the promised land okay you remember the book of Deuteronomy okay second law very specific things
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- God said if you do this you can stay if you don't do this and you do these other things then you're going to have these things happen to you and remember at the beginning of this study we went through that list of things that God said would happen to him including
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- God all the way back at the time of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy said that he would send him into exile and the purpose of the exile was to do what to punish them to get them to come to their senses again the mosaic covenant is a land lease agreement it's
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- God's land he will let you lease the property but these are the rules this is the which you are contractually obligated to do on the mosaic covenant no worshiping of false gods that's off the table what did
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- Israel do I think we'll worship all we'll worship a shirah we'll worship the starry host of heaven so God basically you know so they're complaining about the fact that the land has possessed them and they are no longer possessing land they don't understand what's going on so God basically is going back to like kindergarten at this point you eat flesh with blood in it which you're not supposed to do in the mosaic covenant you lift up your eyes to your idols you shed blood you're a bunch of murderous idolaters and shall you then possess the land uh -huh you rely on the sword rather than God you commit abominations and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife you shall then possess shall you then possess the land
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- I would note that um internet pornography wasn't a problem back in Israel it was just straight up adultery okay now now we just have visual adultery it's just ridiculous so you know what were they doing they were a bunch of idolatrous murderers who were breaking the covenant and they were also adulterers okay shall you then possess the land so say this to them thus says the
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- Lord Yahweh as I live surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword and whoever is in the open field
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- I will give to the beasts to be devoured and those who are in the strongholds and the caves shall die by pestilence so you'll note that these are people who fled
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- Jerusalem before the army got there they're hiding out in waste places they're hiding out in you know in places where there's strongholds they're hanging out in caves and stuff like this because they basically in doing so they're trying to preserve their life but in this particular case because God is the one who sent
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- Nebuchadnezzar's army the reason why he sent them was to punish them for their sin they got away for a time and God says it ain't gonna work
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- I'm still I'm gonna hunt you down like dogs and y 'all gonna die okay that's what he's saying
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- I will make the land a desolation of waste and and her proud might shall come to an end and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through then they will know that I am
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- Yahweh when I have made the land of desolation and a waste because of all of their abominations that they have committed as for you son of man your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another each to his brother come and hear what the word is that comes from from Yahweh so you'll note that 12 years into the exile at this point remember when
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- Ezekiel first got rolling they were thinking hey this guy's loony tunes okay well 12 years into it now
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- God has taken notice of the fact and that is this that the people who are in exile with Ezekiel are believing that Ezekiel is bringing them the word of Yahweh and they themselves are going to hear it they want to hear it ah
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- God's word is doing something right so and they come to you as people come and they sit before you as my people and they hear what you say but they will not do it it's like okay we know that you're speaking the word of Yahweh and God says stop worshiping idols stop murdering oh but I hate that guy okay stop sleeping with your neighbor's wife oh but she's hot all right so they're at least there's this there's a slight improvement they believe
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- Ezekiel speaking the word of Yahweh they still aren't doing it they're hearing but they're not doing which means they don't really have faith remember when we talk about you know what is the difference between saving faith and demonic faith the demonic faith is a weird way of defining it but you know people rightly point out listen the devil knows that Jesus is the son of God and the demons know that too that did you know the demons believe in the doctrine of the trinity it's for them they they've seen they know they know that God is three and God is one um so the demons believe that how come they're not saved they believe it they know it's true okay because when it comes to saving faith there's a third part so we talk about the kind of the three things that make up saving faith first part is notizia this is the knowledge the facts okay fact when we when we confess the apostle's creed today okay we believe that um
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- Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate crucified died buried those are all facts right so part one is the facts itself part two is a scent that the facts are correct yes
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- Jesus died but that that does not make saving faith saving faith is the faith that says that God exists that Christ did these things and he did them for me for the forgiveness of my sins you get the idea there right so you're going to note here here we have they are hearing they are hearing
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- God's word from Ezekiel and they are assenting to the fact that these are the words of Yahweh they still don't have trust they don't have faith yeah question do we even uh no we do not okay um
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- Christ did not die for angels he died for human beings okay and you know angels are not given to preach the gospel men are so kind of a fascinating thing you know all right so continue on all right so they came to you as one as people come and they sit before you as my people and they hear what you say but they will not do it for with lustful talk in their mouths they act the heart is set on their gain and behold you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument for they hear what you say but they will not do it when this comes and it and come it will then they will know that a prophet has been among them interesting so why are they listening to Ezekiel it part of part of what's going on here and we see this in what what uh the
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- Lord says is that Ezekiel delivered the message in a very compelling way he delivered it in a way that they really thought man this guy can really bring it yeah there is that fact too that that's not mentioned in the text it's just this just happens to be just a true statement but but you get the idea here and so i would note you we always have to be careful in that and careful in this regard sometimes somebody comes to us and they are skillful in their ability to bring a message all right so when if you were to ask me like who's like the most skillful heretic when it comes to bringing messages probably td jakes you've ever watched this fellow holy smokes one of the most gifted communicators i've ever seen in my life and i can see the appeal i can legitimately see the appeal this guy when he starts off he kind of sounds kind of weak and he kind of draws you in with the low voice and partway through you know he gets booming to the point where he's shouting and screaming and it just whoa you know it just it it'll it'll it holds the audience captive but you're gonna note that that even that isn't enough
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- Ezekiel clearly had skills like that but faith doesn't come by a good performance faith comes by hearing hearing through the word of God and they're hearing the word of God and God has identified the problem is that although they are hearing it their hearts are still set on gain oh yeah yeah
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- Ezekiel he can bring it oh i love listening to him man he's wow he can really preach oh but i just gotta figure out how to make that next shekel that's a problem you see all right prophesy against the shepherds of israel son of man the word of Yahweh came to me son of man prophesy against the shepherds of Israel now this is a word that seems out of place seems out of place and let me do something really quick here we're going to do a word search in the scriptures okay rabbi huh if i do a word search for all of the bible and i look for the word rabbi where's the first time it you know it shows up new testament is that interesting that's interesting according to the mosaic covenant who was tasked with the job of teaching
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- Israel God's word the priests um more specifically it was actually the
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- Levites okay remember the 12 tribes of Israel you got 12 of them one was set apart one did not receive a land allotment they did not receive a land inheritance and that was the
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- Levites and in fact that the whole nation of Israel from the other tribes had to pay a tithe for the purpose of redeeming them you know basically as as part of this the whole rigmarole of them being set apart well here's the thing if you were a if you were a
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- Levite what were the chances that your clan and your family will be called to do the priestly duties if we're talking if you have hundreds of thousands of Levites men they don't the chances that you would actually serve in the temple minuscule very minuscule so what were they tasked with their primary task then they were tasked with teaching
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- Torah teaching the bible teaching the old testament to the people of Israel and they they were the ones responsible for setting up synagogues and things like this but you'll note that the word rabbi does not appear here in the in the old testament it's not there weren't these itinerant rabbis and things like this running around at the time of Ezekiel okay so here when we see prophesy against the shepherds of Israel that sounds like God intended for the
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- Levites the men to be pastors overseers of their souls and things like this and they were but my question is this how good of a job were they doing you know if if Israel ends up and Judah ends up in exile because of idolatry what's going on here so I would note there's there's there's a a notable progression to heresy that I have noticed it's a repeating pattern and um and unfortunately it's one you familiar with the concept of the law of diminishing returns is that it it never when things when the heretic is finally oh you're a heretic things never go back to the way they were it's a fascinating thing so what happens is is that here the church is just trucking along and all of a sudden some someone shows up and says well you know we shouldn't believe in the doctrine of hell we don't need to believe in the virgin birth and things like this and it creates turmoil and the church you know kind of spirals and goes downhill and stuff like this and then by the time they sit there and go why were we even listening to that guy okay they don't go wait we're all the way down here we need to get back up here this then becomes the new baseline and and so it's this whittling away effect that you see happening and it's like one of the things
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- I distinctly remember this early episodes of fighting for the faith people go way back into our audio archives or you know the back in the those days the seeker driven evangelical mega churches put some effort into making it appear that they were teaching biblical sermons
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- I can point you to mega churches now during the sermon the bible barely if at all makes an appearance it's crazy and I just sit there and go what has happened so at the beginning of the whole mega church movement they still had congregational singing okay uh the worship praise and worship time was really supposed to be congregational praise and worship time they still had that thing
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- I can point you to very very popular mega churches now there is no congregational singing the praise and worship time is basically a rock a rock and roll show and sure they might put the words up but who's singing along you can't even hear the congregation so you know it's just it's just weird thing going on here so so let's come back here so the word of Yahweh came to you sent a man prophesied against the shepherds of Israel why don't you prophesy and say to them even to the shepherds thus says the
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- Lord Yahweh ah shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves oh that sounds like today okay hmm okay by the way just quick quiz here who are shepherds supposed to feed the sheep sheep need sheep are stupid okay they're really dumb okay and they take a lot of work okay and I saw this one video
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- I was scrolling through social media and this video pops up at random on my for you page and there's a sheep and it's stuck in a in a in a crack in the in the ground and this there's this guy there to rescue the sheep and he's working working but pull finally with a lot of effort pulls the sheep out puts it on the ground and the sheep goes bounding off and falls right into the same crack just 20 feet down the down farther it's like stupid sheep okay okay we won't take that person right right
