Ezekiel – Intro

[00:00:00] The Book of Ezekiel, chapter one, beginning at verse four. And I looked. [00:00:07] And behold a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud with a fire infolding itself and a brightness round about it. And out of the midst thereof, as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire and out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. [00:00:32] And this was their appearance. [00:00:34] They had the likeness of a man, and every one had four faces, and every one of them had four wings. [00:00:43] And their feet were straight feet. [00:00:46] And the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like burnished brass. [00:00:54] And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides. [00:00:59] And they four had their faces and their wings. Thus their wings were joined one to another. [00:01:06] They turned not when they went, they went, every one straight forward. [00:01:12] As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man, and they four had the face of a lion on the right side, and they four had the face of an ox on the left side. They four had also the face of an eagle. [00:01:28] And their faces and their wings were separate above. [00:01:32] Two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies, and they went, every one, straight forward. Whither the spirit was to go, they went. They turned not when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches. [00:01:57] The fire went up and down among the living creatures, and the fire was bright. And out of the fire went forth lightning. [00:02:05] And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. [00:02:12] Now, as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures. For each of the four faces thereof the appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto a beryl. And they four had one likeness and their appearance. [00:02:33] And their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel. [00:02:38] When they went, they went in their four directions. They turned not when they went. [00:02:44] As for their rims, they were high and dreadful, and they four had their rims full of eyes round about. [00:02:53] And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. And when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. [00:03:03] Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went thither was the Spirit to go. [00:03:09] And the wheels were lifted up beside them. For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. [00:03:16] When those went, these went, and when those stood, these stood. And when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them. For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. [00:03:28] And over the head of the living creature there was the likeness of a firmament, like the terrible crystal to look upon, stretched forth over their heads. Above and under the firmament were their wings, straight one toward the other. Every one had two which covered on this side, and everyone had two which covered on that side their bodies. And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult, like the noise of a host. When they stood, they let down their wings, and there was a voice above the firmament that was over their heads. When they stood, they let down their wings, and above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire. [00:04:24] And upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above. [00:04:32] And I saw as it were glowing metal as the appearance of fire within it, round about from the appearance of his loins up and upward, and from the appearance of his loins and downward, I saw as it were, the appearance of fire. And there was brightness round about him as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. [00:04:57] This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake, we come to the book of Ezekiel, which is the third book, the third of the major prophets and the fourth book of our prophetical division of the Old Testament. [00:05:30] We come, I trust, to the first of the studies that we shall take on Ezekiel. We may cover it in two or three studies. [00:05:41] I don't want to rush too fast to Ezekiel, because it is so very important. [00:05:45] It's important, I might say. I will try to this evening, at any rate, underline its importance to further studies. [00:05:57] It is not only the third of the major prophets and the fourth book of the prophetical division of our Old Testament, but it is also the the second of the three great preparatory ministries in the Old Testament. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. I think by now you ought to know those three preparatory ministries at the end of the Old Testament age of dispensation. [00:06:24] Ezekiel is the second of them. [00:06:26] It's a book which I'm afraid, is often sadly neglected, for the very simple reason that most young Christians start, as we will all do, with the first chapter of the book, read through the first chapter, and very rarely get beyond the second, perhaps some will stagger on into the third and the fourth. But before long, when they find again the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters a recurrence of this amazing vision that he had in the first chapter. Most young Christians, and I might say a good few older Christians, give up in despair. [00:07:06] Ezekiel has, therefore, because of its exhaustive detail and its complex imagery, has been sadly neglected. It's one of the books I remember when I was a young Christian, that I never touched. [00:07:25] The very name Ezekiel conjures up, even to this day, I'm afraid, something complex and exhaustive. [00:07:36] We ought, however, to underline the fact that Ezekiel, his place in God's economy and his message, which in actual fact is more important than the man, is vital in every way to an understanding of prophecy, particularly in the Bible. [00:08:04] I think we ought to note how very different Ezekiel is to the preceding prophets. [00:08:11] He has not the same poetic gift that, for instance, Isaiah had. [00:08:20] I don't know. I only trust that you are reading these books as we study them, because you won't gain much otherwise, really of a lasting nature. But if you are, even if you don't understand them and you're plotting on the way through, you ought to gain something as a result of reading them. I would like to say just this, that anyone, I feel, even a young Christian, that I gave a passage from Isaiah two or three times and said, now that's Isaiah. [00:08:47] And then were to give them two or three passages from Ezekiel to tell them of Ezekiel, before very long, even a young Christian would be able to tell me, that's not Isaiah, that's Ezekiel. Ezekiel has a strange style, a style peculiar to himself. [00:09:10] He is quite different from Isaiah. Isaiah is that wonderful oratorical gift, wonderful gift of speech, and one gets the sense of a tremendous flow with Isaiah, for instance, I never find Isaiah complex. I don't know if anyone else does. But he's one of the books. I believe that why that part of God's Word is so popular with God's people is simply that it is so beautiful, it's vision is so transparent, and yet it is so flowing and simple in concept anyone can understand. You don't get wheels within wheels. You don't get creatures with four heads moving about in every direction, up and down and backwards and forwards and so on. You don't get anything of the complex nature of Ezekiel with Isaiah. You've got instead something quite different. [00:10:13] Well, Ezekiel has not got the literary gift of the kind that Isaiah had. Isaiah is supreme in literary gift, but that does not mean to say, of course, that Ezekiel has not got very real literary gifts, but they are in another direction. [00:10:31] And then again, Ezekiel has not got the very warm and sympathetic and unbelievably tender spirit of Jeremiah. [00:10:44] Indeed, in actual fact, he is quite a stern character, Ezekiel. He doesn't lack tenderness, but his nature is a very open, frank and downright nature. We shall see as we study Ezekiel, how very openness of a strong type of nature is this man. [00:11:09] It's very interesting when you start to really study the prophets, how you begin to find the character of each man, and you will begin to find amongst your friends people that will be of the same character. I understand there are those who believe that all the human race can be summed up in seven. [00:11:29] Basically seven different kinds or types. [00:11:33] Whether that's so or not, it's a very interesting theory, and certainly it is interesting to find these different men here are Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. We find three totally different kind of men in themselves. Not only different in gift, but different in type, wholly different to each other. [00:11:59] But having said all that, it does not mean to say that Ezekiel is not a most gifted man. [00:12:05] Indeed, his gift, I think, lies, if we speak on the human level, in his unbelievable imagination. [00:12:20] Ezekiel obviously had most tremendous powers of. Of imagination, not only. I'm not just saying that what he saw, he imagined. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is this. A God took hold of a man who was an imaginative man and a man who could imbibe things in a symbolic and figurative way. [00:12:42] It comes out, particularly in Ezekiel's prophecies later on when he. When he speaks of Israel, like a valley of dry bone. [00:12:50] And he sees them all, corpses, not just corpses, but withered corpses. They're all just skeletons and they're so decayed that the bones are not even joined to the bones. And he sees it all. He depicts it, how the bone comes to the net, each bone and fit comes together and the flesh comes up on it, and then they stand up and then the breath of God goes into them and they become a living army again. [00:13:16] This is the kind of man that Ezekiel is, a highly imaginative man. It has been said that for imagination he is unsurpassed in scripture. [00:13:30] And also, we could stay for quite a while just giving evidence of this amazing imaginative element in Ezekiel's character. [00:13:48] But it's not only for his imagination, when he describes Tyre as a beautiful ship and describes it in detail, so that it's given many scholars a great headache, because they cannot understand quite how Ezekiel could describe the vessels in Tyre or Sidon in such detail, right down to the upholstery of the cushions and right down to a detailed list of the cargo that they carry. [00:14:19] These are the things that have given rise to a lot of the difficulties that scholars have had in accepting the authorship of Ezekiel. But it is, in actual fact, a vivid and clever mind and imagination which is of a photographic type. [00:14:42] It receives an impression and retains it and is able to paint the picture perfectly later for others. There are people like that, they receive an impression of something, it remains embedded in them, and later on they can most beautifully define and portray what they've seen in such a way that the whole thing lives, in some cases lives more when they tell you than when you actually see it. Some people, you go out and see something and you wouldn't really notice much, but you listen to them tell you, and the whole thing lives in front of you. And it's all very wonderful and it's all very exciting, and really you decide you're going to go out and have a look at it yourself. [00:15:27] That's the kind of man that Ezekiel was. [00:15:30] He's not only an imagined, has an imaginative element, though, in his character, he is also marked by the straight, direct way in which he records his message. Now, that may not seem so on a superficial reading to many of you. It may seem that he is unbelievably confused in the way that he puts it it, but in actual fact, he's not. You must remember that Ezekiel has seen something which almost defies human language to put into words. And when you begin to get a grasp of it, you will be amazed by the direct and straight way in which Ezekiel doesn't just give you the broad outline, but gives you all the details as well. [00:16:16] I think that's remarkable. [00:16:20] I think we ought particularly to note the amazing and detailed pictures that he does give in every way, right the way through this book, you will find that he comes down to the most amazing things. For instance, you take the last chapters from 40 to 48, and you find Ezekiel sees a temple. Now, there are some people who've said that, and this can be borne out, I trust, by some of you here. You better go away and study it yourself, those last chapters. But I understand that Ezekiel's gift, in as far as surveying and designing goes, is quite unique. [00:17:03] When you come to his description of the temple, for instance, his proportions, its symmetry, the way it should be built, he is evidently quite an architect. [00:17:13] He's a most remarkable man. [00:17:16] What he's seen. And the way he puts it down with all its measurements might not be interesting to everyone, but to any who know. So I understand it is quite fascinating just on the technical level alone and has, of course, again, provided scholars with a great problem of getting it all down into blueprints, which you will find any number of in books on Ezekiel. And then again, what I was just going to say was, here is Ezekiel. He sees all this tremendous temple that's to be built, but he comes right down to the boiling hooks and the boiling rooms and all kinds of little details that we would have thought, well, surely all he wants to leave us with are the board outline, what he's seen. [00:18:02] Ezekiel has to come right down to a detailed picture, and he paints everything which he sees. [00:18:09] And no one has given us more mysterious or more instructive or more inspiring visions than Ezekiel. They are mysterious, we've all got to admit that. I mean, we don't usually hear of visions of wheels within wheels and all kinds of faces and weird forms and so on. [00:18:32] These are mysterious visions, but they're not. [00:18:35] Once we begin to see into them, they become instructive and inspiring. [00:18:43] But I would like to underline just one other thing, and that is this, that in actual fact, Ezekiel laid the foundation for what is called technically apocalyptic literature. [00:18:58] Don't ask me exactly to define for you what apocalyptic means. Literature is. [00:19:03] I cannot quite see myself the line that many scholars draw between what they call prophetic literature and apocalyptic literature. But I'll try to explain it like this. Prophetic literature is Isaiah and Jeremiah, the type that has a broad sweep. Apocalyptic literature is visionary literature, which is the. Which is the defining of visions seen, for instance. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is this. Ezekiel is apocalyptic literature, and so is Daniel. These great visions that they see of great images and great monuments, you know, and so on. [00:19:45] We usually call this apocalyptic literature. Ezekiel was the first to lay the foundation of all that is to come. We haven't got a lot of apocalyptic literature in the Bible. We have just a certain number of books. And of course the Book of Revelation is apocalyptic, but there's a lot outside the Bible. [00:20:08] Well, those are a few facts. [00:20:11] Ezekiel is called the prophet of reconstruction, and that he most eminently was. [00:20:22] He is called more than any of the other prophets, the prophet of reconstruction. [00:20:27] The dominant note, and I'm now speaking of ministry and not the person or the message of the book, but the dominant note in Jeremiah's ministry was judgment, almost to the point of excluding any light or hope at all. [00:20:43] That was the dominant note in his ministry, the dominant note in the ministry of Ezekiel, is a transition from judgment to restoration. [00:20:54] And indeed, in actual fact, there's a tremendous amount of hope and light in the ministry of Ezekiel. On the one side, he does follow Jeremiah in denunciation and in warning of the terrible judgment that was to come. But he, much more than Jeremiah, sets forth the hope, reconciliation and recovery and restoration that was to be the lot of the people of God. [00:21:22] In the grace of God, Daniel, and this is most interesting, never speaks of judgment at all for the people of God. [00:21:31] His whole message, if you take just his ministry, not the key to the book, but just his ministry, is to do with the purpose of God right down through the ages. Right down, indeed. We're included in Daniel's visions, and we shall see that. One of the most exciting books we could take, and one of the most controversial, we are included in Daniel's Visions. He sees right down to the. To the century and beyond, to the end of the world as we know it. But you see how interesting it is, these three preparatory ministries. The first dominant note, judgment. The second, transition from judgment to restoration. The third, completely to do with restoration and then the fulfillment of God's purpose. [00:22:21] I think that's a remarkable fact. [00:22:25] The Book of Jeremiah was marked by personal details. You remember, we were amazed at the personal details we found in the Book of Jeremiah. The way he confessed continually brings himself into the picture. But Ezekiel, strangely enough, is marked for its absence of personal details. He just will not bring himself into the picture at all. Only when he has to, or when he's told to act out something before the people. He hardly furnishes us with any details about his life and his background at all. [00:23:00] So it is quite clear that Ezekiel is not any kind of autobiography whatsoever. [00:23:07] We could almost say, as some have said, that the Book of Jeremiah is an autobiography. But Ezekiel is not an autobiography of any shape or form. [00:23:18] It is a systematic, prophetic exposition. Sounds rather technical, but that's what it is. It's a system exposition of what he had seen. [00:23:36] I think that's very important, that we should get that. And in the most orderly way, Ezekiel's prophecies and messages are laid out. [00:23:47] Indeed, it is the detailed, systematic and exhaustive way in which this book is set out that is so unique. [00:24:02] I can't think of any other book in the whole of the Bible which is so detailed as this book. I'm going to say a little bit, if we have time, about Ezekiel as a man. [00:24:14] One of the things that interests me Very greatly about Ezekiel is he just because he is of an exhaustive power nature, he cannot leave detail, he's got to exhaust it. Consequently, we find that when it comes to some things, we almost weary of Ezekiel, because he insists on giving us every detail which he has seen in the broad sweep as well. [00:24:44] Well, that's the striking thing about Ezekiel, that it is so systematic, so orderly. This is not like Jeremiah. Herein lies the most tremendous difference. Jeremiah was an absolute. [00:24:56] Well, I was going to say a haphazard confusion. [00:25:00] It's not in chronological order, indeed it's not in any order whatsoever. As you all well know, Jeremiah's prophecies have given more headaches than any other portion of the Word of God to scholars. No system, no order at all. Because the Holy Spirit is bringing a man out of the message. It's not so much the message, the man, Jeremiah has a system, but it's not a detailed and exhaustive system that Ezekiel has. He is unique for this systematic and exhaustive way in which he lays everything out in his message. [00:25:36] The Holy Spirit, it seems to me, wishes to impress us here more with the message than the man. [00:25:46] So he includes every single thing, every aid to our understanding that he can, but he excludes every single thing that would mislead us. Consequently, we have hardly any personal details about Ezekiel. Indeed, I might say that Ezekiel is not even mentioned outside of his book. [00:26:08] If we only had the book of Ezekiel to go by, there would be no Ezekiel in the history of God's people. He's not mentioned anywhere else but in his book. The man is kept down to a minimum. And it's his message which is given the absolutely pre eminent place. Now, I do trust that even if you find this all a bit technical, you might begin to see how amazingly each phase in God's economy differs. How, for instance, when God is in the day of Jeremiah, which of course overlaps Ezekiel, he is dealing with Jeremiah, seeking to bring Jeremiah out. [00:26:45] And is Jeremiah not so much the message? Message is important, of course, but it's Jeremiah that is the lasting message as far as we're concerned. When we come to Ezekiel, the Holy Spirit keeps Ezekiel out of the picture as much as possible. And it's the message that the man's got which is the preeminent thing and the thing which is going to be the lasting value. [00:27:08] It's most interesting. Later, when we come to Daniel, we shall find a mixture of the two. [00:27:17] Ezekiel uses a very wide range of methods. [00:27:22] It's very hard to start to explain all the methods that Ezekiel uses. He uses more methods probably than any other prophet. Of course, he uses symbolic acts. You know, he's always doing the most amazing things. [00:27:36] He eats filthy food, absolutely filthy food. The kind that would make us sick to think about. He's told he's got to eat it before the people as a symbolic act of what they're feeding on. Then he's told to lie on his side 391 days, I think it is. And then on his other side for 40 days, symbolic act again. These are prophetic acts. He's not so much what he said, it's what he did. [00:28:00] Then again, he had to take a tile and he had to draw Jerusalem on the tile. Then he had to build like a sand castle all around it. Siege works about it. And so he had to depict before the people the siege of Jerusalem. Of course, some people think, well, what weird antics for the man to get up to. But you must remember that it is quite probable that Ezekiel was ostracized in his day by most of the people of God. And it is quite probable, as someone has suggested. I say it's only a suggestion, but it's worthy of note that Ziega was led of the Holy Spirit to do some of these things in order to gain a hearing at all. [00:28:38] It was the only way in which people would in actual fact, take note of what he was saying. [00:28:47] I want you to note on the board this, that I have drawn here because I feel in these studies, even though at times they may be a little bit much for some of you, I want you to get the facts of things so that later on, if people do contradict you or gainsay you what you have to say, you have got facts upon which you can rest. [00:29:17] Now, I have been saying to you that Ezekiel has a ministry, Jeremiah has a ministry, out of which, as it were, Ezekiel comes, out of which Daniel comes. These three are like extensions of each other. They're three men bound together in one common phase in God's purpose. Jeremiah initiates something, Ezekiel carries it on, Daniel concludes it. But I rather aware that some people might point out to me I have been speaking as if Jeremiah was followed by Ezekiel, chronologically was followed by Daniel. Certainly the order in the word of God, the final order which the Holy Spirit has given us is in that. In the order Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and. [00:30:13] But in actual fact, chronologically the story is a quite different one. It begins, and I have only here, and if you want to copy this down, I would suggest you do. [00:30:24] These are only the periods of their ministry not of their death, their lives say they were born. Actually Jeremiah was born before them. [00:30:36] But these are the periods of his ministry. You will see therefore, that the public ministry of Jeremiah ended there, began in 627, ended in roughly approximately 586. In actual fact, it ended a few years after that when he was taken down into Egypt and stoned to death. So tradition tells us, in 606, which is quite a few years before the end of Jeremiah's ministry, Daniel started to minister in Babylon. He had been carried away in 606 to Babylon as a captive in the first stage of deportation. [00:31:19] He was amongst the first crowd ever to be taken captive into exile under the Babylonian scheme of what we now call transmigration. It was the taking of whole tribes of people and resettling them the other side of the empire in order to break up their cultural and educational background and to somehow put a brake on any alliances or rebellion. [00:31:49] 606. Daniel, as you know, came to a very high position in the court at Babylon and He ministered to 533. [00:31:59] As far as we know, he died more or less then because that was three years after they returned to the land. [00:32:07] Ezekiel started to minister in 592. He was in actual fact deported to Babylon in the second stage of the deportation. 597. [00:32:21] And he started his ministry five years later in Babylon. And he ended it as far as we know, in 570. In actual fact, we don't know how Ezekiel died. We don't know when he died, if he indeed lived to see the return as Daniel did, over lived to see it. Daniel was an old man of 92 when he went to be with the Lord. [00:32:43] Ezekiel would have been in his 80s if he had. In actual fact, that we don't know. All we do know is, is that his recorded and written ministry ended in 570 BC. Now I hope that you can see how they are extensions of each other in this order. You see, they would seem to be Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. But if you take this, you will find that it's the other way round. Here, here, here. [00:33:17] That is the way in which the Holy Spirit has finally positioned them in Scripture. Now, I expect some of you will want to copy that, but I'll put it back for you afterwards because there's another diagram on the other side. On the diagram, but a few facts that you may also want to copy. You won't be able to copy now. Please don't copy now, otherwise you'll be copying the whole time and will not gain anything. What I want to say, but I now just want to mention one important fact that I believe will be a real help to some of you, especially those who are more serious students of God's Word, and that is that Ezekiel lays the foundation of a tremendous amount that is to come in prophecy. [00:34:06] We have said that Isaiah in actual fact laid the foundation. [00:34:10] He did, but it was Ezekiel. It was left to Ezekiel to bring in certain ideas and images, symbols, which were to be taken up again and again and again till the end of the Bible. [00:34:26] And this is most marked in the Book of Revelation. [00:34:32] Here we have just a few of the relationships of Ezekiel to the Book of Revelation. [00:34:41] They are. It's not exhaustive. It's quite full, but it's not exhaustive. These are the direct allusions in Revelation to the Book of Ezekiel. Now, those of you who are serious students, especially those of you who want to understand prophecy, will you please put that down afterwards and. And go away and in your quiet times, read a few each day. The reason being this, that there are wild and speculative ideas based on the Book of Revelation, because people have an idea that the Book of Revelation suddenly came out of the blue, whereas in actual fact, the Book of Revelation is the culmination of everything that's gone before. And if you don't go back to where the thought begins, you might well misunderstand comparison completely where you find it at the end. So if you've got to find out what did Ezekiel understand by the four living creatures before you come to that wonderful throne that John sees in the fifth chapter, fourth and fifth chapter of Revelation, and he sees again the four living ones around. [00:35:45] You've got to understand that some people try to tell me that there's going to be a temple built according to the prophecies of Ezekiel in the millennium, the Jews are going to go back to the their land, and then they're going to build a temple exactly according to the specifications of Ezekiel, and that all the priesthood is going to be set up and everything else. Well, many people believe that, but I just cannot understand them at all, I'm afraid to say. [00:36:12] First, I cannot understand how on earth you reinstitute a sacrificial system which has ended in Christ and a priesthood of a certain few for the rest, which ended in Christ, so that we are all priests. And thirdly, I don't quite understand the building of a temple, when in actual fact it is now summed up in a spiritual temple, particularly when you understand that what John says, what Ezekiel says about the Temple and the city is all taken up exactly in the book of Revelation where it is quite clear that it is not a Jewish city and, and it is not a Jewish temple. It is that of which the other is only a type and a shadow. Well, now I know some will have difficulties about that because most of us have been brought up on the other kind of teaching. [00:37:02] But you see, there you are, you take hold of the city at the end of Revelation and you take it for one thing, you don't think it's connected with Ezekiel, but Ezekiel was the first person who defined the city which John in these finish, takes up and develops. [00:37:17] Well, I would like to leave that there with you. But it is not only in the book of Revelation, it is most marked in the book of Revelation. We find a lot of Daniel comes out of Ezekiel. You get Gog and Magog. You see, that's the thought that runs through to the end of the Bible, many other things like that. And I would like to mention one other thing too. John. I feel John the apostle Paul was obviously a student of Ezekiel, or if not, he was certainly a successor in the apostolic succession to him. Because it is interesting to see the links between John's Gospel and Ezekiel. See, Ezekiel speaks of the vine. [00:37:59] Now John takes it up and says the Lord Jesus said that he was the true vine. Ezekiel speaks of the river of life. John takes it up in his Gospel and speaks of rivers, of the living water flowing out by the spirit being within. [00:38:13] Ezekiel speaks of the shepherd king who will lead the people of God. And John speaks of the Lord Jesus as the true and the good shepherd. It's most interesting if you take these facts. [00:38:31] Well, now that's all that I have to say this evening as far as introducing Ezekiel. Now, can we say anything about the authorship and date very briefly? I'm afraid this is rather technical. [00:38:43] You want to put down one or two facts in Ezekiel, chapter one, from verse one to verse three, you will find that this claims to be the work of Ezekiel. It claims quite clearly and all the way through this book of Ezekiel, you will find it's in the first person. I, I saw this, I saw that. And it doesn't matter where you turn, you will find it's related to what has happened. In other words, it's quite clear that the whole book is the work of one man. At least it would seem, if you read it just rationally and logically, it would seem to be the work of one man. He's always referring back to the river Kiba and what he saw at the river Kiba. [00:39:25] So it claims to be the work of his. [00:39:28] Now, Ezekiel's authorship is acknowledged by the great majority of scholars, although some have suggested a very late date. [00:39:39] 320 BC is one date that's been suggested, and they've even suggested it right down to 163 BC. [00:39:48] The reason is rather, I think, petty in some way, at least one of the reasons. They say that how can a man possibly depict things that are going to happen? [00:40:01] And there are some scholars who feel that no man can possibly foresee the future. If he has said that he's seen the future, he's a liar or it's not his work, that's all. So they don't like to call anyone in the Bible a liar. So they are biblical scholars. And so they say that it's not the work of the man that it claims to be. It was the work of a man who lived when it happened, and then said that it. That it all been foretold years before that, as I'm afraid has been, has happened to Ezekiel. Those who say that he couldn't possibly have foretold some of the things, and therefore it must belong to a much later date. [00:40:43] Part of it is the work of Ezekiel and. And a lot of it is the work of a later redactor who sort of wrote back into Ezekiel's mouth things that had happened. [00:40:55] Others would like to attribute it to a number of writers and split it all up. And the reason being a very simple one. Ezekiel's always talking of seeing things in Jerusalem, and they say, how on earth can a man who's in, who's thousands of miles away from Jerusalem, see what's happening in the temple courts, what's happening inside, know the date when a man died, and remember it took sometimes 18 months for news to get from Jerusalem to Babylon, and yet here he was recording that so and so had died that day in Jerusalem. So they said it must be the work of two men, one at the beginning, one. [00:41:34] One in Babylon and one in Jerusalem. [00:41:40] I hope that's clear. Anyway, there are these who suggest this, however, are a very small minority. And most reasonable scholarship joins with all antiquity in attributing the book to Ezekiel. [00:42:00] Most would agree that it is Ezekiel because of the marked unity of science style. [00:42:08] Now, all of you, even if you can't stomach too much of this, of the technical side, you can all read the book of Ezekiel. And I think if you read it logically and rationally, one thing will become quite obvious to you all that it's the work of one man. There is a unity of style that runs right through the whole prophecy of Ezekiel. [00:42:32] It bears the mark of a son single mind in its imagery, for instance, which recurs again and again and again. What happens in the first chapter is built upon right the way through to the last chapter, not only in imagery, but phraseology, and not only phraseology, but composition. It all bears the mark of a single mind. The design by which it has been systematically laid out is the work obviously of one mind who has set it all out in order in the most amazing systematic order. [00:43:07] The objections to Ezekiel's authorship, at least those that warrant any attention at all, raise bigger problems than leaving it with Ezekiel. [00:43:19] Some scholars, and by the way, they are not conservative scholars, have said that some of the suggestions made about the authorship of Ezekiel are so unbelievable that they find it requires far more faith to believe the suggestions made about it than to believe that Ezekiel in fact did write it. [00:43:42] One person, conservative man, scholar, has said that we must remember that with Ezekiel we are dealing with the east, and there is such a thing as a strange telepathy in the east and a strange kind of second sight. [00:43:59] We must remember that when we're dealing with some of these prophets, Ezekiel undoubtedly saw by the Spirit of God what was happening in Jerusalem and was able to depict and define what was wrong and what was the trouble in the most remarkably detailed way. [00:44:19] Well, then, all that sums up to this, we can reasonably attribute the book of Ezekiel to Ezekiel. [00:44:27] That's where it all ends. [00:44:29] It seems quite reasonable to attribute it to Ezekiel. Quite a number of scholars believe that the first three phases of Ezekiel's ministry, that's from Ezekiel 1 to 39. [00:44:45] We'll look at that when we look at the outline. [00:44:48] Another evening, which was all given up to the time of the fall of Jerusalem, and immediately following it was prepared and edited for circulation before the last chapters were completed. I think that's the most remarkable suggestion, and it is the suggestion of a number of very fine scholars, indeed, they believe that there are quite a number of inside evidences to suggest that when he came to chapter 39, he had completed everything. And he not only prepared all those 39 chapters, put them into their order, but edited them and had them circulated. [00:45:34] 13 years. [00:45:40] Passes between chapter 39 and chapter 40, and when you come to 40 to 48, there is a different atmosphere. [00:45:48] And it's quite possible that that, by the way, is generally speaking, quite a time after the fall of Jerusalem, and it may well be that that was added later. [00:46:00] The prophecies themselves are dated variously, quite clearly, and they are on the other side of the board View member dated from 592 BC through to 570 BC. That is 22 years of recorded ministry. We have in these 48 chapters of Ezekiel. The book cannot have been put into the present form that we now have before 570 BC. [00:46:32] It probably was put into the first form that we now have it there about Ezekiel is more chronologically arranged than Jeremiah, but not absolutely so. Its order is not historical, its order is literary. In other words, the order is the order of the message, the sequence of the message, and where it can be put in chronological order. He has carefully put it in chronological order, but he will not allow that to upset the sequence of the message. In other words, it is the message that comes first and not the actual date at which these messages were given. That's very interesting because it means that obviously Ezekiel had the whole thing written out before him. [00:47:18] And when he looked at it all, he began to compile it according to a design that was in his mind and very carefully. [00:47:27] Generally speaking, it's in chronological order. But every now and again, for a real reason, he allows that to slip. [00:47:36] But it's nearly always chronological, in a chronological order within its subject. [00:47:41] So that if you get to denunciation of judgment against the nations, you will find that that particular group of chapters is in chronological order. Then later you get another group of chapters to do with restoration, you will find there in chronological order order. Is that clear? [00:47:57] More than any other prophetic book, this one has been planned for literary effect. [00:48:06] Now, there are some who believe that Jeremiah wrote out his message before he actually ever spoke it. [00:48:12] Because it is undoubted that Ezekiel is the one of the few books in Scripture that he was really written, although it was, according to what we find here in the book, it was first spoken. It was obviously afterwards put into a written form. This is not a spoken form. [00:48:31] For instance, when you take. You see others, you've got it in spoken form. Take Jeremiah. It's all in spoken form, just as he spoke it from the platform. But Ezekiel is not. He's sat down and he's written it all out very carefully. What he said has been written out. [00:48:47] At times Ezekiel speaks, and this might be of help to you. [00:48:52] Sometimes when we hear ministry that we don't fully understand, Ezekiel speaks to any. Sometimes to anybody's own congregation. [00:49:02] Here he is speaking to a little tiny group in this little town, thousands of miles from Jerusalem, and he's delivering a tremendous message to Jerusalem, all about Jerusalem, what's going to happen to Jerusalem, what they should do and their 18 months journey away, try and get news through to them or thereabouts. And it's really rather remarkable. This is the thing that has caused the headache to quite a number. [00:49:30] It seems at times as if Ezekiel didn't need a congregation. And indeed some have suggested that if he had sat down and written out his message, we would still have it in the form we've got it now, that really the little congregation that gathered around him to listen to him hardly seem to come into it. Of course there are times when he does speak to them, but again and again he's speaking to Samaria, he's speaking to other places, he's been to Jerusalem, speaking to the mountains of Israel, and seems to be addressing himself continually to people at the other ends of the earth in the midst of this little company, obviously Ezekiel. And remember, this betrays a careful, the careful and orderly nature of a literary man and not a public speaker. And that is one of the most important say about the book of Ezekiel because it emphasizes the fact that it is the message that the Holy Spirit wants to put over and not the man. [00:50:36] See, I am trying to give you facts so that when people say to you, who told you that that young upstart at Halford House told you that Jeremiah was the message? And Ezekiel doesn't come into the picture. The point is there are facts behind what we say. And you see, you take the book of Jeremiah, it's the man. [00:50:58] There's nothing literary about the book of J is a terrible confusion because it's the man that the Holy Spirit wants to put over. But Ezekiel is the product of an orderly and literary man of high quality. [00:51:13] Hardly need to be spoken, certainly not anything like Jeremiah. The cryings out of a heart all the time. This is something which has been written out and thought out. The things that he saw is put down, committed into biting. And it's quite obvious that as he's done so, he's remembered because he had that photographic type of mind. Every single detail that he saw and he's tried to explain it. Rims, dreadfully high rims full of eyes, wheels that went everywhere. Later next week, I trust I'll try and draw a few diagrams so that we can somehow or other try to clear up the mess that exists. What are these wheels? I know everyone wants what on earth these wheels. Wheels are wheels within wheels and how they can all go different directions and so on, but actually when you start to see it all Takes it all seems a little more sensible, at least I hope it will. [00:52:04] Ezekiel is the first of the prophets to show the very strong influences of the exile working. And now this is interesting, be interesting to some of you. His style has absorbed a tremendous amount of the Babylonian atmosphere and surroundings in which he lived. But the most interesting thing of all is not the sort of Babylonian, the Aramaic flavor of his style and of his attitude and of his phrases of phraseology and so on. But it is whether, and this is a tremendous controversy, I hardly dare touch it, whether in actual fact Ezekiel first saw he his imagery in Babylon Assyria, because there are many scholars who point out that there are many winged creatures and others in Assyrian and Babylonian mythology and so on, which undoubtedly in the temples and elsewhere in Babylon Ezekiel saw. [00:53:09] In fact, there are some that are unbelievably like what Ezekiel tries to depict. [00:53:18] There is one that was discovered, I believe, that even had the wheels underneath of a kind. [00:53:25] Now did Ezekiel see that? And was that the thing that the Holy Spirit used to when he saw this vision? [00:53:35] Was that the thing the Holy Spirit used to speak to Ezekiel? Well, I wonder. I question it because you see the cherubim as we call them, and it's a very interesting fact that only much later on in the book of Ezekiel does Ezekiel suddenly say, and then I understood they were the cherubim. [00:53:55] Now isn't that interesting the first time we ever have in Scripture, although cherubim mentioned in the third chapter of the Bible, it's the first time we ever have a really comprehensive description of what the cherubim look like. [00:54:08] A very important thing. [00:54:10] I know cherubim were a bit confusing to some, but it's a very important thing that we should understand what these cherubim are. [00:54:19] And Ezekiel saw something. It is also very interesting that in every ancient civilization of the world, whether it's Egyptian, whether it's Babylonian, whether it's Chinese, whether it's Indian, every single one has had these strange composites figures as guardians. [00:54:35] Now isn't that interesting? In China you had those great fierce looking dogs with great bulbous Pekingese eyes and curly things and wings out the back and so on. Look ferociously at you. In Egypt we had the Sphinx and elsewhere they had these winged lion, yet human type figures of Babylon. And so it goes on. Now why I suggest that in antiquity it all goes back to the cherubim, the third chapter of Genesis, where the cherubim was set over to guard the way to the tree of life and somehow into the antiquity to the very Beginning of time. This idea was burnt into the human race so that as they parted to the four corners of the globe, they took some idea which was passed down from father to son of these weird winged creatures that guarded the way to the tree of life. And so we find it in all the ancient civilizations of the world. [00:55:27] So it doesn't worry me at all whether Ezekiel borrowed a bit from it. I think the Babylonians borrowed a bit from the Bible. [00:55:33] It may be that Ezekiel saw a little more clearly when he was in Babylon what the cherubim really were. I'm not going to describe what the cherubim were this evening. I want just to say a few things about the background of Ezekiel, which I think. Well, now we're passing the technical to that which is probably a little more interesting to most of you, and then we'll leave it tonight and next week, I trust, when we take the key to Ezekiel and something of the outline, we may, by the grace of God be helped to understand something more of these cherubim, which are so basic to the whole of the message of Ezekiel and indeed to the Bible. [00:56:16] What is the background of Ezekiel? Can we find anything in the book of Ezekiel about him? Very little, but we can find one of two facts. First of all, we find that Ezekiel spent most of his life under the shadow of Babylon. He lived through the last reigns of the kings of Judah, from good King Josiah and right through the succeeding four evil kings. He lived right through their reigns into, if not right through most of the exile, the 50 years of the exile. [00:56:44] Not only did he live through all that he was, in actual fact, if we take Ezekiel, chapter one and verse one, now, it came to pass in the 30th year. Most scholars agree that this means the 30th year of his age. [00:56:58] Now, if we go back, why does he say the 30th year? [00:57:03] Why should he mention there's no other prophet gives us his age? Well, a most remarkable fact, if you take it back, you will find it comes right back to the exact year that the Book of the Law was found in the temple. He was born the same year in which the Book of the Law was found in the days of Josiah, which occasioned the great revival of Josiah's day. Rather remarkable that. [00:57:25] Another fact, of course, is that the 30th year is the year at which a priest entered upon his ministry according to the Levitical law, and Ezekiel was a priest. And the year that he became 30, like John the Baptist, the same with our Lord Jesus, was the year that he was called to enter into his ministry under the Levitical Law, a Levite had to wait until they were 30 years of age before they could perform as a priest. Now, that's very interesting. He was born then in Josiah's reign at the time when the Book of the Law was found, and was 30 years of age when his ministry commenced. He was like Jeremiah, not only a priest, but a prophet. If you look at chapter one and those first few verses, you will discover verse three. And in chapter two, verse five, you will find that he is called both a priest and a prophet. [00:58:19] We learn from the actual stage of the deportation in which he was taken into exile, that he belonged to the nobility, because he was in the stage of the exile which took place in 597 BC, when only the aristocracy and the craftsmen of Jerusalem were taken. So evidently he was a child of noble parents. [00:58:46] That's a little bit of information we can get about Ezekiel. He was a married man, not unlike Jeremiah. He was a married man and his wife died. And this was a great blow to him. [00:58:59] As a sign, it shows you the lengths to which the Lord goes sometimes. His wife died as a sign the very day that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege against Jerusalem. [00:59:15] And the Lord said to Ezekiel, she died of a stroke. [00:59:19] The Lord said to Ezekiel, and he called her the delight of his eyes. [00:59:25] The Lord said to Ezekiel, ezekiel, you're not to mourn. [00:59:28] You are not to wear sackcloth and ashes. You are not to wail. You are to go out, and you are to show your face just as normal. Because this day my wife said, the Lord has died. He was speaking of Israel. And he meant. And so Ezekiel had to act out one of the hardest prophetic acts of his life. His whole life, his whole ministry was taken up with these symbolic acts. And now it came right down to the hardest and deepest level possible. How deeply the Lord tries those of his children, sometimes, especially those called to such important ministries as the prophet Ezekiel. [01:00:08] I think we should learn from that. This kind of ministry we have in this book did not come easily. It's not just the imagination of a man who's imaginative and rather enjoyed confusing people or dazzling people with strange, mysterious things that he saw. This man suffered deeply at every point in his life, and indeed his ministry cost him everything if it was to be fulfilled. [01:00:35] So he was a married man. His wife died the day on which Jerusalem was besieged. The siege began. [01:00:42] He was deported at the age of 25 in 597, as I have said, with King Jehoiachin and he lived in a Jewish colony called, called Tel Aviv, not Tel Aviv, Tel Ab, on the banks of a river that was called the river Kibar, which is not the river Habor. Some people have said it was this river, but it is now generally believed that it was not that river. It was a little canal, or quite a big canal that joined the Euphrates to the Tigris and that ran south 50 miles southeast of Babel near a town called Nippur. [01:01:22] That's where he was deported to. That's where he ministered the whole of his life, in this little Jewish colony somewhere in this region here. [01:01:36] What else can we learn about him? We learn that Ezekiel had a large house, very large house, according to Scripture. And he used to give his messages in this house. [01:01:48] And everyone who wanted to could come and listen, and people went to consult him there. The elders amongst the Jews in captivity used to go, travel many miles to see him, to ask him questions, ask his advice. And many other people used to come in. And tradition tells us that that is where the Jewish synagogue began, in the house of Ezekiel in Tel Aviv. He began what is today still the common part and center of the life of every Jew, the synagogue. [01:02:23] He would have been a contemporary of Jeremiah, and he was a contemporary of Daniel. You saw the chart on the other side of this board. He was a contemporary both of Jeremiah and of Daniel. [01:02:34] He was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah and a contemporary of Daniel, indeed. And this is a point. Daniel had been functioning in his position in the court of Babylon, some 50 miles from Ezekiel, for 10 years, when Ezekiel began to minister. [01:02:52] That's a very interesting point. [01:02:55] Whether these two men met, that's one of the great conjectures, naturally, that we would all like to make. Did Ezekiel meet Daniel? Did Daniel meet Ezekiel? One thing we can say is this, that we are quite sure that Ezekiel met Jeremiah because he was born in the year that the Book of the Law was discovered and the great revival in the reign of Josiah. And for the whole first 25 years of his life, he lived under the influence and ministry of Jeremiah. [01:03:24] So it is undoubted that he was brought up at the feet of Jeremiah when he left Jeremiah. We don't know whether he had much to do with him after that. [01:03:33] We do know that a letter was sent from Jeremiah to the exiles, a long letter, beseeching them to be loyal to the king of Babylon. And we know that one year after that letter came, with the resulting explosion amongst the people of God against Jeremiah, Ezekiel started to minister. So you See, these men are all linked in a rather wonderful way, because we have no record that Ezekiel did meet Daniel or vice versa, but we can trace a tremendous amount of kinship in ministry between these three men. [01:04:14] Well, now, are there any other things we could say before we finish this evening? [01:04:20] We can say just one or two other things. [01:04:24] Ezekiel's name means God is strong. [01:04:29] And I don't think there could have been any other name that more fitted the man, man's character or the man's, the time in which he lived, how they needed to know that God was strong then, or the message that he brought of reconstruction and recovery. What a wonderful name he had linked so often with these prophets, with the message and the days in which they lived. [01:04:57] It would seem that his ministry up to the fall of Jerusalem was not acceptable at all to the people of God. It was largely denouncing their sin and warning of the coming judgment, and therefore it was not acceptable to them. And on top of that, there were lots of false prophets that were telling them that very soon there would be a change of regime and they'd all go back to Jerusalem rejoicing. [01:05:25] So, of course, Ezekiel was the most unpopular man. And the first large number of chapters up to about Chapter 24, at least of Ezekiel is this phase of his ministry when he was not acceptable to the exiles, although they respected him. They did respect him, but his ministry, his message, was not accepted. [01:05:47] It's interesting, as I've said, that after Jeremiah had written to the exiles, beseeching them to be loyal to the king of Babylon, it was a year after that that Ezekiel began to minister, taking on the ministry of Jeremiah, extending it. I don't think that people could have liked it at all. [01:06:08] In actual, Jeremiah wrote to them, saying, now look what's going to happen. Don't you believe those false prophets that tell you they're going to come back here, you're not going to come back here. Jerusalem is going to be raised to the ground, on a stone, left on another stone. [01:06:20] Then suddenly they all said, well, send that letter back. And they send a letter back, and the false prophets writes back to the king and says, have Jeremiah put to death. It's disgraceful that he should write to us in captivity telling us that we should be loyal to a heathen king. [01:06:35] And then, of course, a year after that, Ezekiel starts for quite a number of years, right in their midst to warn them about this. But after the fall of Jerusalem, he was accepted, and he was accepted by everyone and was given a very wide hearing, because the false Prophets had been proved wrong and. And Ezekiel and Jeremiah had been proved right. [01:06:58] Consequently, everyone was prepared now to listen to Ezekiel and he was given a very wide and popular hearing indeed. And it is at that point that his message changes from judgment to hope and to restoration and recovery. It's rather wonderful. From that point onwards, it's judgment of God on the nations, followed by restoration Israel and the rebuilding of the dwelling place of God. [01:07:29] Anything about the man? And then we must close. Is there anything we can say about the man? [01:07:34] Well, we can say just this. He stands out as one of those kind of men that is unbelievably conscientious and efficient. That's the thing that stands out with Ezekiel. You've only got to redo his prophecy. You find the way. He can't let go of detail to realise this man is absolutely conscientious to a degree. [01:07:55] He's that kind of efficient, conscientious type of nature, the orderly type of nature that must get everything clearly worked out and cannot leave anything. Not the kind of people that leave dust in corners or under carpets. You know, got to literally take everything up and literally do every nook and cranny. You know, that kind of person or person, when they do a job, has just got to do every little part of it absolutely correctly and finely. Well, that's the kind of man that Ezekiel is. And as so often with that type, he is a strong, direct and frank type of nature. You find it everywhere. He's most frank. [01:08:40] He will come right out into the open, not like Jeremiah, he won't sort of sob or cry or break down. He just comes right out in the open and says, look here, if you are not going to do that, this is what's going to happen to you. And, well, you'll just have to face it. [01:08:56] He's that type of man. He has the kind of mind that is analytical, it worries over little detail. [01:09:06] And I'm sure that's why God used him for this particular revelation. [01:09:11] No other man would have possibly done. I can imagine some of us here, when I look around the room, there are both these types in this room this evening, those who believe in just getting on with the theme and not bothering about all the details and let's get done with it quickly and let's have the theme that's essential. And there's the others in the room who not only do that, but feel that they must have every detail correct or it worries them. [01:09:39] And I can imagine that if some of you who just want the essential thing Were given the vision that Ezekiel had, you would have said, well, there were four kind of creatures, wheels underneath them there was a kind of glory that shone all out everywhere. [01:09:57] And they had animals heads, you see, that wasn't enough. [01:10:05] Our Lord wanted to know, wanted us to know that they had high rims and that the rims were all eyes, and that the wheel was within the wheel. And when it moved that way, it went that way and it moved that way. It could move everywhere, you understand, it could either go that way or it could go that way, could go up, or it could go down. It was that kind of thing. We've got to know all that. And consequent Lord chose the type of man that is Ezekiel to do this particular job. And yet combined with all this, there is the most vivid imagination and indeed in some ways a most artistic sense. [01:10:45] That is the most remarkable feature of Ezekiel. That he should be a combination of all these things is quite remarkable. [01:10:54] Well, now, we can't end without just saying that the greatest single factor in the life of Ezekiel was undoubtedly the vision that he saw at the river keeper when he was 30 years of age. [01:11:10] Someone has pointed out that two others began their ministry by a river when they were 30 years of age. John the baptism, the Lord Jesus both saw the heavens opened about them at that time. And it's interesting to see the way in which the Lord just took up Ezekiel. He saw that sudden storm coming out of the north, and it was all lightning was coming out of this cloud that was red with fire, quite a natural phenomenon in the east. [01:11:43] And then suddenly he saw what was not a natural phenomenon. Out of the midst of that far that thundering and stormy cloud came these four creatures. Then as he began to look at the four creatures, he saw wheels underneath them. And then he saw a throne above them. And then he saw upon the throne someone who he could only describe, who had the likeness of a man. [01:12:12] Now that's the vision of Jeremiah. And he called it the glory of the Lord. [01:12:20] Perhaps we think to us, well, what do these weird animals do with the glory of the Lord? What do these wheels do with the glory of the Lord? [01:12:28] Every part of it has something to do with the glory of of the Lord. It was that that made the lasting impression upon Ezekiel. And the first chapters speak of what he saw, the glory of the Lord, how he saw it by the river of Kiba. The last chapter speaks of the glory of the Lord coming back. And all those central chapters speak of the departing glory. So very, very wonderful thing. The way Jeremiah saw it. He just saw what was the glory. Then he saw the glory of the Lord departing from the people of God. And then he saw a new state, a new order brought in, and the glory of the Lord returned. [01:13:08] Well, may that help us into a little more understanding. Perhaps now Ezekiel's a little bit more near to us. I hope, and I hope that Ezekiel is a little bit more human so that now we come to read his book and go on studying the this book of Ezekiel, perhaps we shall be a little more kinder in our attitude toward Ezekiel.