Ep 396 | Ezekiel, Come Follow Me 2026 (November 2-8)

Now we have one week to do Ezekiel, which is a long, very beautiful, but very complicated book.

And don't get lost in it.

There's a lot of rabbit holes to go down.

But don't lose sight of the major overall message of Ezekiel to see the nature of God in punishment.

We need to understand this is where God sends them into captivity and destroys the temple.

And we need to turn it and see God in punishment because there is a great lesson to be learned about his nature and who we are and our connection to him when we, like Israel, have to go into captivity for our own deeds.

I think that's one of the most important things I have pulled out of the book of Ezekiel is to understand the nature of God in punishment.

The second thing about Ezekiel is such glorious hope for the future.

We are the hope that they saw.

And so Israel is a valley of dry bones, but will it live again? Yes.

And she will rise again and be a great army.

And she will have in her hand the stick of Judah.

And she will do wonderful things again.

So we're going to see a vision of us and the glorious temple restored and the beauty of what that temple is going to do again, and especially in the latter days.

So those are kind of the two themes I would have you watch for is what do we learn about God when he sends Israel into captivity and destroys the temple? And what is this message of hope that things are going to come back and be

better and glorious again?

But let's do a little history because we need to know where Ezekiel fits.

This is unlike Jeremiah, who is still in Jerusalem, pleading the cause for Judah to come back and be restored because there's still hope of avoiding the calamity.

But by Ezekiel, that's not the case, right? So this is where God sends them into captivity and destroys

the temple.

Yeah.

The book starts in 593 B.C., and that's the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity.

That's verse 2 of chapter 1.

And we read in the text that Ezekiel is a prophet that lives in Babylon.

He lives with the first group of exiles.

Now we have one week to do Ezekiel, which is a long, very beautiful, but very complicated book.

And don't get lost in it.

There's a lot of rabbit holes to go down.

But don't lose sight of the major overall message of Ezekiel to see the nature of God in punishment.

We need to understand this is where God sends them into captivity and destroys the temple.

And we need to turn it and see God in punishment because there is a great lesson to be learned about his nature and who we are and our connection to him when we, like Israel, have to go into captivity for our own deeds.

I think that's one of the most important things I have pulled out of the book of Ezekiel is to understand the nature of God in punishment.

The second thing about Ezekiel is such glorious hope for the future.

We are the hope that they saw.

And so Israel is a valley of dry bones, but will it live again? Yes.

And she will rise again and be a great army.

And she will have in her hand the stick of Judah.

And she will do wonderful things again.

So we're going to see a vision of us and the glorious temple restored and the beauty of what that temple is going to do again, and especially in the latter days.

So those are kind of the two themes I would have you watch for is what do we learn about God when he sends Israel into captivity and destroys the temple? And what is this message of hope that things are going to come back and be

better and glorious again?

But let's do a little history because we need to know where Ezekiel fits.

This is unlike Jeremiah, who is still in Jerusalem, pleading the cause for Judah to come back and be restored because there's still hope of avoiding the calamity.

But by Ezekiel, that's not the case, right? So this is where God sends them into captivity and destroys

the temple.

Yeah.

The book starts in 593 B.C., and that's the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity.

That's verse 2 of chapter 1.

And we read in the text that Ezekiel is a prophet that lives in Babylon.

He lives with the first group of exiles.