[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's morning out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be reading from Nia Maya chapter nine Verse 26 through 29 And I am David Roughton.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yes, and please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all are so well trained.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would warn you or who had warned them in order to turn them back to you and they committed great blasphemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, you gave them into the hand of their enemies who made them suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the time of their suffering, they cried out to you and you
[SPEAKER_01]: And according to your great mercies, you gave them Savior's who saved them from the hand of their enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: But after they had rest, they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times, you delivered them according to your mercies.
[SPEAKER_01]: yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: But stand against your rules, which of a person does them, he shall live by them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, David.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys have a seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a Bible, you can open it up to me in May of 9, where we were just reading from.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have a Bible, there's some under a lot of the chairs and kind of looking chairs in front of you and see if you don't have one at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take that Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is your Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, me and my chapter 9, it's kind of right in the middle of your old Testament.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know anything about the Bible, look at the very beginning of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a little table of contents.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll tell you what page you're looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me and my chapter 9.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, thank you so much again for just allowing us to be here together today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your Word, that is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, your Word is so uplifting and so encouraging to us, and your Word is also, again, it's true and it's convicting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God, as we read it, and as we read about a period of your people's history called the exile, Lord, let us be mindful
[SPEAKER_00]: the reality of God what it is in our hearts and our lives that draws us away from obedience to you and how we might turn again to you in repentance and faith and look to you as our all sufficient God and Father and not turn to the ways of the world or the desires of our hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: over you or let us just see what we need to see today and yeah be drawn towards your your character, your nature, your goodness and all things we love you in Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He might have been lost while you were driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, legitimately got lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: He might have ever been legitimately, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how many times this happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a bunch of them, we got GPS in the world, you know, we got our phones and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one time I really remembered this week as I was thinking about that, we were in Scotland, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were in this place pretty remote part of Scotland where it's hard to get service, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're already in another country, so you're trying to figure that out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: We're on I think it was in the Isle of Sky or somewhere around there are on the coast and we're driving around and we just were looking for this one little Airbnb and we're driving over enjoying the scenery and we're stopping to take pictures of the Highland cattle and sheep and stuff like that and mountains and we're having a good old time having fun but eventually we just got to the level we like we do not know where we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: GPS is not working right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are in the middle of no, I mean, nowhere in Scotland.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not houses, there's one little road.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't see anybody anything, nothingness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just, you kind of get to that point, don't you where you're like, do we keep driving?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean, or do we turn or write like, do we know, you know, you're debating all of that is me, my wife, and our friends, and we're thinking, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully by the grace of God this this dude in this little I think it was like a male truck He just comes beat off and down the road over the hill and we wave him down I really like do you have any idea with this like road we're looking forward and in Scottish which does not sound like English He told us to you know turn around and go back to you and we didn't we ended up finding it But man, I don't know you ever get to a place like that where you just fill man.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did we get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I had how did we end up in the place that we ended up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes those are funny
[SPEAKER_00]: situations where you get to a place in life, where you're like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did we get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did I get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: What choices led me to this place?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really where we find the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this part of the story, as we've been walking through, God's redemptive history through the creation and the fall and the promise that He made to Abraham to gather people to Himself and then leading these people out of slavery and then gathering this people into the promise land the nation of Israel and now today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really what we're looking at is this time and Israel's history called the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and it really is, you kind of read through these stories and you just think, man, how did the people of God get there?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did they get to this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, God has been so clear with them and so good to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's given them his law, his word, he's, he's reminded them again and again who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has shown up for them and redeemed them and saved them time after time after time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet still, here they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: here they are and God sends his prophets and we're going to look at a few different prophets today.
[SPEAKER_00]: God sends his prophets to his people to answer this question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How'd you get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: you wind up in the place that you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could have, I could have, you could have avoided this if you just listened to me, but really the profits come and they just answer that question for the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're here and here's why.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to really quickly look at a timeline of the ex house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to throw a little timeline up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that it's hard to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh man, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, that's really hard to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll give you the website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy joys.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to look at that, holy joys, call holy joys.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can actually go look at that website or if you just want to take a little I test today and see like what's the smallest profit you can read, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you read?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: There it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what this timeline is.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a timeline from it's a thousand.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a thousand BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about 400 BC, about 600 year time span.
[SPEAKER_00]: The red line on the top, that's the northern kingdom of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked last week about the kingdom, the nation, the monarchy being split into.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and once it's split into, we got the red kingdom up there that lasts a lot shorter than the yellow is the southern kingdom of Judah last a little bit longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the timeline a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the divided kingdom in the north last from about 931 BC to 722 BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, during that time, you have Elijah and in Elijah and Elijah they're the first red prophet up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those two really are the ones speaking out against the corruption, the injustice, the abuses of power going on in the northern kingdom
[SPEAKER_00]: At this time, also these world powers begin to grow a Syria, Egypt, Babylon, they are growing and power, they're attacking nations around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prophets are threatening destruction for the people of God because they have turned from God's ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not listening to Him, they're not following Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prophets come, they begin to threaten God's going to bring these nations in here to make work out of you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have prophets like Jonah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hosea, Amos in the Northern Kingdom, Joel, Isaiah and Micah in the Southern Kingdom, and they're prophesying those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in 722 BC, that's the end of the red line right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: 722 BC, the Assyrians come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They attack the Northern Kingdom and take into captivity many of these
[SPEAKER_00]: and then we're the king, and they also send a lot of their own people into the promise land to now mix and mingle with the remaining Israelites who live there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why, by the way, when you get to the New Testament and the Israelites hate the Samaritans, that's where they came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the Assyrians coming in as the invading peoples, now having marrying and having children with the Israelites and creating the race of the Samaritans, that's why the Israelites don't like them, because they remember in this period in their history, right, and that's what they think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so that was 722 BC, the Assyrians take over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Babylon destroys Assyria and Egypt in the late 600s BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Judah, that southern kingdom lasts about another 135 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: During this time, you have profits, Jeremiah, a backup, is Zikil, Daniel, and Zefaniah they begin to prophesy to the people of Judah and coming destruction and then some of them go into exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we'll see here in a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Babylon invades in 605 BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: for the first time into the Southern Kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we have the book of Daniel beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: The book of Daniel Daniel is led off into captivity to Babylon along with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three of his buddies, Shadrake, me Shekin' been to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys know the stories there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not bowing down to the eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get going to the fiery furnace.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel's just a man of prayer and a man of faithfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The book of Daniel is really divided into two.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first half of Daniel is, here's what it looks like to live faithfully in Babylon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what it looks like to live faithfully in a land that is not your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think us as Christians in 21st century America, we can take a lot of lessons from Daniel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just being a man of prayer and a man of faith and a man of consistency, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The second half of Daniel is a lot of actual visions and prophecies about kingdoms that are to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: In $5.97 BC, the Southern Kingdom is attacked again, and 10,000 captives are taken in subabalone at this point, $5.97 BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that includes Ezekiel, the prophets.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he goes into captivity at that point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 586 BC, despite God's warnings, and because of the advice of false prophets, so the book of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they both speak a lot of the false prophets.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of guys in the land still prophesying to the people who've got claiming to be prophets who are speaking the word of God, but they're actually not, they're lying to the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by and large, they're lies where everything's gonna be okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was their lie, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: People love that their ears tickled like that, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's going to be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were actually prophesying this captivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: This whole Babylon thing's going to be real short.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be real simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody's going to be fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're all going to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jeremiah was one of the prophets going, no, it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be fine because you have forsaken the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have turned away from his law, and the other prophets were trying to just incurs, and I don't worry too much about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is not really serious about his judgment, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel said otherwise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in 586 PC, despite God's warnings, and because of the advice of those false prophets, King Zedekai leads a rebellion against Babylon.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the second King's 24, if you want to go read it, the second King's 24.
[SPEAKER_00]: in alliance with other nations, which is again one of their sins, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Lining themselves up with other nations like Egypt, the Egypt that they got delivered from, they're now trying to be allies with and fight against Babylon, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so despite God's warnings of that, Nebuchadnezzar now comes in and attacks and completely decimates Jerusalem in 586 BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Jeremiah said, what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: He told him it was going to happen and it did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so while they're in exile, we have the profits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ezekiel and Daniel, mainly who have their ministries within the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are exiled people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ezekiel's much more of a preacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel, again, is much more of an example of faithful living.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both of them have visions from the Lord for telling what he would do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you about Daniel's second ago, and I'll tell you about Ezekiel here in a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 605 BC to 538 BC, that's the period of that we call the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of over here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 605 to 538, that's the period we call the exile of the southern kingdom of Judah in particular.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 539 BC, Persia overtakes a Syria and Babylon into one Persian empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Persia is the empire that's really booming at this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've seen the movie 300, which you probably shouldn't watch, because it's not super wholesome, but if you've seen it, that's the Persian Empire, this like multitudinous empire of other nations from all around the world into one big conglomeration of an empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in 538 BC, King Cyrus, Emperor Cyrus, over Persia, he makes a decree, and by the way, this was prophesied by Isaiah, he prophesied that Cyrus would do this, Cyrus makes a decree
[SPEAKER_00]: and begin to rebuild.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the second simple, during this time, some of the Jews start to go back into the Promised Land by the Providence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of the points of the Exah, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's Providence over nations, that this is not in the control of a Syria.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not in the control of Babylon or Egypt or Persia.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is in the control of who?
[SPEAKER_00]: God Almighty, He's doing it the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so He sends Cyrus, actually calls Cyrus, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Call Cyrus his Messiah to his people, his anointed one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how much God is saying,
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, Cyrus is being used by me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So since his people back during this period of time, the second temple is now completed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first temple was destroyed, and the original destruction of Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second temple is completed in 516 BC.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the book of Ezra, you go read Ezra and they rebuild the temple and come back to the book of the law and commit themselves again to God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 478 BC, we have the story of Esther, fascinating story, we go read the book of Esther.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time, Zerk sees is the Emperor over the Persian Empire and Esther this orphaned Jew girl becomes the queen over the entire empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: How amazing is the providence of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a plot put together to annihilate the Jews and Esther is put there for such a time as this that she would actually speak to the king and save her people from annihilation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's providential plan of redemption, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This young girl who just happens to become queen of Persia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at 445 BC, art as Erksees allows Nehemiah to return to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they already have the temple that they have the walls.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he actually allows the people to go back, rebuild the walls in 52 days, they complete the building of the walls of Jerusalem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now, towards the end of the 400s BC, we actually have Jerusalem restored, not to its original glory, but the temple is there, and there are walls there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have some prophets like Hagiai, Zechariah, Malachi, who prophesied to the Jews after the exile, after all that's over.
[SPEAKER_00]: About mostly the Messianic kingdom that is to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the question, how did we get here, though?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did we end up there, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's look at NEMI chapter nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually read through pretty much this chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want the word of God to speak to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the sermon today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's from NEMI and then Ezekiel and Isaiah are going to talk to us as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, let's, let's read how we got there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Nehemiah, once they come and rebuild the walls, the people all gather together and then Nehemiah and the Levites, the priests and the Levites, they begin to kind of sing this song of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really just a remembrance kind of song, a song, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just remembering what happened and how they got so where they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Nehemiah, chapter nine, who was starting verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um,
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see, let's start in verse five.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Levites, just you a cadmial, Bonnie, Hechbinaya, Sherabaya, Hodaya, Shebbinaya, and Fathaya, I don't know how to say all these words, y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Said.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go, stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed be your glorious name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It may be exalted above all blessing and praise.
[SPEAKER_00]: You alone are the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their story hosts the earth, and all that is in it, the seas, and all that is in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You gave a life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the Lord our God, you chose Abram, out of Earl of the Caldeans, and you named him Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him and gave to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hitzites, Amorites, Parasites, Jebusites, Gargishites.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have kept your promise, because you are righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw the sufferings of our forefathers in Egypt, and you heard their cry at the Red Sea.
[SPEAKER_00]: You sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You divided the sea before them, so that we pass through it on dry ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you hurled their pursuers into the depths like a stone to the mighty waters.
[SPEAKER_00]: By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to skip down the verse 22.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the Exodus.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where they're at now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they're in the nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 22, you gave them kingdoms and nations, a lotting to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are motifs frontiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: They took over the country of Sihang, King of Hechbon, and the country of Ag of Bashan.
[SPEAKER_00]: You made their sons as numerous as the stars in the sky and you brought them into the land that you told their fathers to enter and possess.
[SPEAKER_00]: their sons went in and took possession of the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: You subdued before them that came in nights who lived in the land and you handed the cany nights over to them along with their kings and the peoples of the land to deal with them as they pleased.
[SPEAKER_00]: They captured fortified cities in fertile land.
[SPEAKER_00]: They took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things wells already dug vineyards, all of gross fruit trees and abundance.
[SPEAKER_00]: They ate to the full and were well-nourished.
[SPEAKER_00]: They reveled in your great goodness.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: and rebel against you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put your law behind their backs.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was last week's messages.
[SPEAKER_00]: The nation has come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've taken possession of the land as they just said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they just continue to be disobedient.
[SPEAKER_00]: They continue to rebel against the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really 26 through 28.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just repeat that cycle, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: God, you save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You deliver them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they rebel against you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you turn them over to the nation's time after time.
[SPEAKER_00]: This happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now.
[SPEAKER_00]: want to pause for a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go to the book of Ezekiel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go to Ezekiel with me chapter 20.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I want to give us some specifics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Nehemiah and their song right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're being a little bit general.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just about the wickedness of the people of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ezekiel is going to give us a little bit more specifics about what were the sins of the Israelites?
[SPEAKER_00]: What were the things that they were doing to break their covenant with God?
[SPEAKER_00]: so specifically, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Ezekiel names a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's look at Ezekiel's 20, verse eight, Samarit eight through 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they rebel, this is God speaking through Ezekiel.
[SPEAKER_00]: They rebel against me and would not listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's number one, they simply rebel against me.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, they rebel against God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They turned away from and chose to follow their own hearts instead of the word of God that he had given them very simple, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They rebel against me, they would not listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: God had spoken to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In his written word, he had spoken them through the preachers and the prophets, and they refused now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stopped up their ears and they go their own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, they did not get rid, listen, they did not get rid of the vile images.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had set their eyes on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: God had taken them out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But man, he just couldn't get Egypt out of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean, like the idolatry of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love other things more than you got.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in the Exodus story, we see the golden count.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they turned so quickly to something else, to worship, something that their hands made.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what idolatry is that it's core, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's control.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to be controlled by the God who made us in his image.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to control something we make in ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's idolatry, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're just so quickly turned to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I said I would pour out my wrath on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: and spend my anger against them in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the sake of my name, God saying, this is about my glory here, it always is.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the sake of my name, I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations they lived among and whose sight I had revealed myself to the Israelites by bringing them out of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I led them out of Egypt and brought them into the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave them my decrees and made known to them my laws for the man who obeys them will live by them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I gave them my Sabbaths
[SPEAKER_00]: as a sign between us so they would know that the Lord had made them holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 13.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet the people of Israel were built against me in the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did not follow my decrees, but rejected my laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although the man who obeys them will live by them, and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, as you read through the prophets, a few different times, you'll see the prophets bring up this very specific thing that Israel did.
[SPEAKER_00]: One was idolatry like we just looked at and rebellion against God and not listening to his law.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other is refusing to keep the Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, the Sabbath was a big deal to God, and the people of God had turned away from keeping the Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually said, and I want you to pay attention to the language he used in verse 12, I gave them my Sabbath's why as a sign between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: that they would know that I, the Lord, made them holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when he's a Sabbath, he's talking about one, the weekly day of rest that they would have on the Sabbath, the seventh day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was like their Saturday, their seventh day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, the yearly sabbaticals and the special holy days and festivals, although all the days and seasons that God would set up for his people as special and sanctified, those were his sabbaths, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's telling his people, you guys have forgotten these things and begun to desecrate them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're supposed to be consecrated, but you've desecrated them and you've turned from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because why the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a sign of the covenant that Israel was a special people devoted to God, a free people, not in the bondage of slavery, a sanctified people, set apart for obedience and faithfulness and a peaceful people, able to trust God's protection and provision in their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the Sabbath represented as the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God tells them, you are to keep the Sabbath holy, observing, weekly Sabbath days, special feasts, special years as an act of faith and obedience to the God who brought you out of Egypt and set you apart for himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so to desecrate the Sabbath is to act in rebellion against God and to keep the Sabbath was to act in rebellion against the cultures around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were choosing to follow the cultures around them and rebel against the Lord, their God, because they were supposed to be known by one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israel was supposed to be known by one thing and one thing alone, the Lord, their God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what they were made for, to be a light to the nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, they desecrate this habit and become like all the other nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, y'all listen, this is much bigger than, they didn't take off work and go to church.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we think about Sabbath, we, like in the Christian sense, because Jesus wrote from the dead on the Sunday, that's why we celebrate on Sunday, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sabbath, kind of, for us being Sundays, the day that we set aside, and we generally just kind of boil it down so we don't go to work, we go to church on Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_00]: But really, again, to forsake the Sabbath, for them was to reject God's power, his provision, his protection, and his very providence, and presence in their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: To desecrate the Sabbath was to forsake their relationship with God himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: because the Sabbath, you'll listen, the Sabbath was about orienting your life around God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to just lay that out for us today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we don't live in the Jewish culture under the same Jewish laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't live under the same Sabbath laws that they have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we do claim to be faithful people to Christ Jesus and the Lord our God, the same God, is your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you claim that, is your life oriented around him in all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the Sabbath of desecrating, that's what desecrating the Sabbath was answering to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have not oriented your lives around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have oriented yourselves around the nations and become like them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead God is calling them back to himself
[SPEAKER_00]: that your lives are meant to be oriented around me and who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I mean, idolatry is the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, that blasphemes, the first commandment, and the second commandment, you shall know of the gods before me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall make no image for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord, your God, that commandment misusing the name of the Lord, your God is to say, to claim the name of God, and yet become like the nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's misusing his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to carry his name and vanity.
[SPEAKER_00]: You carry the name of Christ as a Christian, is your life oriented around Him in Him alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: To not do so would be to commit the same sins as Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what got them here, because they refused to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, in the of my nine, he ends up this little, they end up this little section,
[SPEAKER_00]: You warned them to return to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: They sinbed against your ordinances by which man will live if he obeys them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stubbornly they turned their backs on you became stiff-necked and refused to listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: For many years you were patient with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: By your spirit you had managed them through your prophets, yet they paid no attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you handed them over to the neighboring peoples.
[SPEAKER_00]: in your great mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did not put an end to them or abandon them for you are a gracious and merciful God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they speak right there of the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: The exile was a time of discipline for Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: A time for God to remind them that they did not create themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did not call themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did not make themselves into a great nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: God did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he's reminding them when he sends them here to Babylon, to a Syria, and to Persia.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had tried to take the reins of their own nation, make themselves into a greater, earthly kingdom, and they got all that they got from that was suffering and subjugation to the kingdoms around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then God brought them back.
[SPEAKER_00]: God did bring them back eventually, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they get to come back and say, they're land in verse 36 of Nehemiah 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But see, we are slaves today, slaves in the land that you gave to our forefathers.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then the very last part there they said they say they rule over our bodies in our cattle as they please we are in great distress so even when they come back from the exile into Jerusalem they rebuild the temple they rebuild the walls around and they say we're still slaves we're slaves in our own land now because we're not ruled over by God or even one of our own kings were ruled over by Persia still.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after Persia would come Greece, and after Greece would come Rome, and they would be ruled from that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, the people of God are in the land again, but they're a sad people, honestly, a broken people, are hurting people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say they no longer struggle so much with idolatry, which is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: God had kind of broken them of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they had a renewed commitment to the Word of God and the Law of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where these Pharisees get created over the next few hundred years before Jesus shows up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do love the Law of God and they want to stay with the Law of God and yet, and they're just a people that have been, man, just broken by the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did they get into the exile?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of their foolishness.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did they come back from the exile?
[SPEAKER_00]: God's faithfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you seen the faithfulness of God through the story?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's that registering, you know, that's why it's there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just to remind us, that's always the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is always faithful and we can always trust him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I actually want to look at, um, is Zekil.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go, go to the book of Zekil again with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to look at this passage as we, as we wrap up here in a couple minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I do want us to see sort of the bigger picture of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to see the bigger picture of seeing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is equal 37.
[SPEAKER_00]: Give you a second to get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is equal 37 versus 1 through 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read that.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is is equal a prophesying to the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: about the exile, the time of exile, kind of giving them that this is what God's still doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this is how God has still at work, even through His discipline, even through what is all that has happened to you, people, through your disobedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is equal 37, verse 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was full of bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bones that were very dry, and he asked me, son of man, can these bones live?
[SPEAKER_00]: can these bones, like this is the context of this vision that is equal is getting from the Lord, the people of God scattered, broken, dead bones, can these bones live?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the question he asks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, Osovren Lord, you alone know.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the right answer to that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, sovereign Lord, you're the only one that knows, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse four, he said to me, prophesied to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you and you will come to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will put breath in you and you will come to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you will know that I am the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So his equal does what God says to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He speaks to the bones and the bone start to come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bone on bone and tendons start to cover the bones and flesh comes on the bone and finally breath the spirit of God comes into the bones and they stand up and it says,
[SPEAKER_00]: Army, these once dead and dry bones now stand up living human bodies, has the Army of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 15, here's what it says, verse 15, the word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, take a stick of wood and ride on it, belonging to Judah, and the Israelites associated with him, then take another stick of wood and ride on a Ephraim stick, belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel, join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: We take these two sticks, put them together, and God says those two sticks are the
[SPEAKER_00]: Will they be too?
[SPEAKER_00]: They will forever now be one the northern kingdom of the Israelites this southern kingdom of Judah now One Israelite kingdom under God for the rest of time and then verse 22 I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel There will be one king listen to the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be one king overall them
[SPEAKER_00]: and they will never again be two nations or divided into two kingdoms, they will no longer defile themselves with the idols and vile images, with any of their offenses, for I will save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: From all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them, and they will be my people, and I will be there, God.
[SPEAKER_00]: My servant David will be king over them.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they will all have one shepherd.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get down verse 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will make a covenant of peace with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will be an everlasting covenant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will establish them and increase their numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will put my sanctuary among them forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dwelling place will be with them and I will be there God and they will be my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the nations will know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy when my sanctuary is among them forever, forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you hear the threat of the gospel as God speaks to His people and exiled people through the prophet Ezekiel, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You hear the threat of, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know your sins, I know your brokenness, I know the death that you are now in, but I'm going to bring you back to life and I'm going to make you my people again and I'm going to restore the two nations into one again and that one nation is going to have one king because I'll save them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will be the king in the line of David.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was promise to the people long ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ, the Messiah comes in the line of David to be the king over the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you get this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And He says that kingdom will last how long?
[SPEAKER_00]: That kingdom will be sustained how long?
[SPEAKER_00]: Forever, this will be a kingdom that will never split, never divide, never have civil war.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will be a kingdom that will only grow into eternity why because what His point is is this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The exile, this exile, is not the ultimate exile that God's working to restore you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Israel going into Babylon, Israel going into a Syria going into Persia, that's not the ultimate exile that He's working to fix.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, this is the exile that's been going on through all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's saying, I'm not just coming to bring you back to Jerusalem, I'm coming to bring you back to Eden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to bring you back to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to bring you back to a greater kingdom in eternal kingdom, where there's eternal life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were exiled at the fall from life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were exiled at the fall from eating of the tree of life and being in the presence of God forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God has been working through all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: to get them to a place where now they have context.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they understand what it looks like when you don't follow the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you do turn away from Him in rebellion and God has just going, man, I'm going to bring you back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to make you a nation under one king, the Messiah, the anointed one who would come.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the that's the picture that we get y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I hope you have felt this for the last couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're sort of building this tension, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're building this tension.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next week, I promise you, it's going to get real good.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we see.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we see him.
[SPEAKER_00]: come to life in front of us, flesh and bone, the one who has been running this the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to get to see and see how he fulfills all of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here's what I want to do to close up.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys would turn to the book of Isaiah, back of back a few books from his EQ, Isaiah 40, Isaiah 40, very famous chapter scripture actually put this in my email this
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah is a great prophetic book because he really speaks past, he speaks present, he speaks future, he gives some prophetic, you know, future prophecies towards like what God would do in the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was way before the exile, a couple hundred years before the exile.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was writing as if God was already doing that and the exile would happen and then he would bring his people back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this chapter is about God comforting his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, listen, as we, this story is not about us, it's about God and it's about God's people, but as we do think about man, who God is in our lives, here's a question, a couple questions I think we can ask is we think about exile, what is exile?
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's God's discipline of his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hebrews chapter 12 tells us this, God disciplines his children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would never tell anybody that any hard thing that you go through any suffering that you experience is because you did something wrong, that's not the case, and that's not the point, but we all do know we live in a broken world, a fallen world, a creation that's been messed up by the effects of sin, and so we live in a world that is full of death and hurt and pain, a world that's full of waiting and suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world where, yes, we do experience discipline, because God's always sanctifying us, isn't he?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always sharpening us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's always teaching us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's always convicting us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you feel like you're in a period of that right now in your own life, waiting, suffering, whether for your sins or the sins of someone else, discipline, look, you know what else exiles?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lack of identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lack of purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the Jews were struggling with in this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, who am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't even have a home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who we are anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're struggling with that or just wandering and just feel like, I don't, like, what's my purpose?
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I here?
[SPEAKER_00]: The period of the exile teaches us a couple things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel teaches us to remain faithful and obedient to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Daniel teaches us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ezekiel teaches us that God's redemptive purpose is still staying and he has destined his people for restoration, redemption and resurrection in Jesus Christ, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the story we get to see next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Isaiah teaches us this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I want to read us this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 27.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you say, O Jacob and complain, O Israel?
[SPEAKER_00]: My way is hidden from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's asking, israel, are you really asking the question in your period of exile, does God see me still?
[SPEAKER_00]: Does God still know me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's just like, why are you asking that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 28, do you not know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you not heard?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is the everlasting God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The creator of the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will not grow tired or weary, and is understanding no one can fathom.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even you scrotired in weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
[SPEAKER_00]: even in exile, even in the lowest points of life, the hardest things that we go through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he knows our name, actually, in the past of Detroit before that he said he numbers the stars and the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he knows their names.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his point is not, that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: His point is it's amazing that he knows yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's his point.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I like to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to sing a couple or one more song here in just a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we do that, I want to leave this passage on the screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to give us a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we end our time up, just take kind of just take a personal inventory, a self-assessment of where you are right now in your life, where you are with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And look, maybe your sword on wings like Eagles right now, praise God for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're running and just kind of go through, you know, your daily thing, go into the motions and things are okay or maybe you feel like you're walking and you just need to not faint.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whichever one of those seasons you feel like you're in right now, I just want you to come and look at these words and as you do that, to just pray to God and let that kind of guide your prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, God would lead you to pray through this, God, I need strength, I feel weary.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, thank you for the blessings, whatever it may be, whatever you're feeling and however
[SPEAKER_00]: because we all go through those times, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The ups and the downs, the, the exodus of amazing is that was, but the exile and as hard as that is, we experience both end times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, just let the Lord lead you in prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as we sing, I'd encourage you if you just want to keep praying to keep praying, if you want to stand and sing, stand and sing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just let the Lord leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God, we thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you that you're with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you that you see us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are just God and you hate sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that, but you love your people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you call us to yourself, so let us just bow and humble ourselves before you draw near to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if we feel like we're in a period of exile ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just know that your redemptive purpose is still standing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your work will still continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you are still good in Jesus' name.