Ezekiel

Lesson number one, heed the watchman from Ezekiel thirty-three.

Our truth, prophets are like watchmen on a tower.

If we heed their warnings, we will be delivered from spiritual danger.

That's the truth we want our students to walk away with from this lesson.

And for a fire in the bones, I believe that one of the greatest blessings that we have as members of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ is living prophets.

It's really one of those things that sets us apart as a church.

The fact that we believe in continuing and modern revelation to guide and instruct us.

And one of the blessings of having living prophets is that the Lord can warn us of latter-day dangers, perhaps even before we recognize them ourselves.

But receiving the warning gives us a choice.

What are we gonna do with it? Ezekiel is gonna give us a simple, powerful visual of that responsibility.

And what I love about this passage is that the Lord is also gonna tell us why He warns us, His motivation behind it.

And by the end of this lesson, we hope that our students will, one, feel grateful for prophetic warnings, and two, be more willing to do something with those warnings.

What should the teacher know? The Book of Ezekiel is gonna give us one of the greatest visuals or object lessons for the role of prophets in, in Jesus Christ's Church.

In Ezekiel thirty-three verse seven, the Lord calls him a watchman unto the house of Israel, and that's an image worth understanding before you teach the lesson.

The responsibilities of the watchman, the choices of the people, and the reason for the warning all help us to see what the Lord is trying to accomplish through His prophets.

So first, we're gonna take a look at this visual from the watchman's perspective.

Think about where you would put a watchman.

And obviously, you're gonna want him somewhere with a clear view of what's approaching, what's, what's out in the distance.

High on the walls of the city or in a tower would give him a perspective that the people down on the streets just wouldn't have.

That's why I feel that is such a good analogy for prophets.

Through revelation, the Lord can help prophets to recognize dangers that maybe we as, as your average member of the church may not recognize yet.

These verses also establish where the prophets get their perspective, the source of their wisdom and warnings.

It's in verse seven.

The Lord says, "Hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me." So prophets aren't just teaching their own ideas.

They, they're receiving their warnings from the Lord.