Amen. Amen. Let us turn now to Ezekiel chapter 33 Ezekiel chapter 33 the the turning point in the book of Ezekiel and we'll be reading the last verses of the chapter from verse 21 to verse 33. One of those places where it's been said there really should be a chapter division. The announcement of verse 21 is a very significant moment and we'll We'll start there and we'll read 21 to 33. Page 914 in the Blue ESV Bibles, Ezekiel 33, we begin at verse 21. In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and said, the city has been struck down Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came, and he had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened, and I was no longer mute. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land. But we are many. The land is surely given us to possess. Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord God, you eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood. Shall you then possess the land? You rely on the sword. You commit abominations. And each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Shall you then possess the land? Say this to them. Thus says the Lord God, as I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and whoever is in the open field, I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence, and I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and their proud might shall come to an end. and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed. As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another, each to his brother, come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths they act. Their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes and come at will, then they will know that a prophet has been among them. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation, in the year 2001, The Sunday after the attacks of 9-11, there was a noticeable increase in church attendance. According to one poll, church attendance jumped 6% across the nation. Now, that number, 6%, might not sound so big at first glance, but 6% of 285 million people is 17 million people. 17 million people in the United States who were not in church on September 9th of 2001 were in church on September 16th of 2001. But the increased church attendance did not last. According to some estimates, after only three weeks, there was no noticeable difference in church attendance from before or after 9-11. And so about 17 million people who were in church on September 16th of 2001, nearly all of those were not in church by October 7th of 2001. One professor of sociology who studied the data and the increased church attendance and some other studies about 90% of Americans saying that they prayed during that month and some other things, he said this about the church attendance, quote, It was very short-lived. There was a blip in church attendance, and then it went back to normal." Will the fall of Jerusalem be the same way? Will it lead to a little blip on the radar of religious things? Will a dramatic event slowly lead to a substantial and long-lasting change among God's exiles? These are some of the questions of our text and some of the things that the rest of the book of Ezekiel deals with and we'll consider them tonight with this theme. Change is slowly coming upon God's people. And first, let's look at verses 21 and 22, and we look at the mouth opened. And we have in verse 21, we have the declaration from the fugitive from Jerusalem, probably we should think of this as the first of the fugitive prisoners being dragged back to Babylon. And this fugitive prisoner comes to the exiled community of Israelites there in Babylon, hundreds of miles. It's a journey which even in good times takes about four or five months. for this exile fugitive coming back from starvation and the siege upon Jerusalem and all of those things. It was a six-month journey. And he comes and he speaks to the Israelites in exile. And it's only two words in the Hebrew that translates to this, the city has been struck down. Jerusalem has fallen. This is the kind of event by which you measure years. You know, now we measure years by before Christ and after Christ. Well, how did you measure years before the time of Christ? Something like this, an event like this, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. For Ezekiel, it was a cold comfort and a day of personal freedom. The cold comfort is this. His ministry has been validated. He has been preaching and specifically prophesying about this event for seven years. And now his prophecies, even the very specific nature of them, have proven true. But it's a cold comfort. It's a comfort that comes at a cost. It's at the cost of a lamentable event of destruction and pain. On a very small scale, we might think about the cold comfort of a parent giving a warning to a child, you know, do not touch that hot pan, and then the child reaches out and touches the hot pan and burns their finger. Well, there's a cold comfort there. The parent's word has been validated. The child just learned that mommy was right when she said, don't touch that hot pan. But it came at a price. You don't want to see your child burn their finger. Well, that's the small scale. This is that on a city scale. Ezekiel's prophecy, his ministry has been validated. But it has come at a cost. This was only one survivor. It was only the basic message. There's no Facebook instant messenger. You can't message back to your second cousin or your first cousin and say, who of our family are among the few survivors? At this moment, the exiled community, nearly every single one of them is probably sitting there wondering, is my brother, is my sister, is my son, is my daughter, is my friend, is my neighbor among those who have fallen or among the few who have survived. Ezekiel himself grew up around Jerusalem. He was familiar with it. I think of how he reacted earlier upon seeing prophetically one specific person who was struck down as Ezekiel knows these people. His ministry has been validated, but it has come at the cost of very difficult news. For Ezekiel on a personal level, there is something which he can only be excited about. Now, the book of Ezekiel very rarely tells us how Ezekiel is feeling. That's something that happens only a couple times all throughout the book. His mouth is opened. This has to be exciting. Now to understand verse 22, and that his mouth has been opened, we gotta remember a little bit of the context. We're going all the way back to chapter three, for those who are here. And in chapter Ezekiel three, verses 26 and 27, God told Ezekiel that he would be mute, except when he was speaking the prophetic word of the Lord. That was nearly seven years ago. For seven years, Ezekiel has only been allowed to speak. He has only been allowed to open his mouth and utter speech when he has been preaching. And his sermons have only been from prophetic divine revelation given to him by God. So even his sermons are bound. He can only speak the divine word of the Lord. for seven years. Think about, where were you seven years ago? And now imagine, wherever you were seven years ago, for those seven years you've only been allowed to preach a direct word from God. That's the only thing you could say for the last seven years. Well, now his mouth is open. He can be an everyday person again. He can engage in everyday fellowship and conversation again. It is It's a day of cold comfort. It is also, on a personal level for Ezekiel, it's a day of freedom. Now, at last, the mouth of Ezekiel is opened. Now, for the people, Ezekiel's mouth being opened, it's got to be this personal level of freedom, but it is not just about Ezekiel. It is also a sign for the people. And there have been many things in his life, even the death of his wife in chapter 24, which were a sign for the people. What is the sign for the people now? Well, it's not a huge community in exile. We don't know exactly how big, but we think of it probably like a small town where kind of everybody knows everybody. So I'm sure that everybody knows Ezekiel has had this speech requirement for seven years. For seven years, no one's heard Ezekiel speak unless he's preaching these divine sermons from the Lord. And now all of a sudden, hey, Ezekiel can talk again. Brothers and sisters, it's part of the sign. It's part of Ezekiel's ministry. It's one of the ways that God was teaching the people that on this day of destruction, on this day of receiving very difficult news. And this day of the people sitting there wondering, is my son alive? Is my daughter alive? God is still working. There are still new beginnings. There are still things to do. And even the fact that Ezekiel can now return to everyday life Remember, his life is like a sign to the people through these years. It's a sign that things are not done. There's a new beginning. There's something more to do. Brothers and sisters, have you ever needed a new beginning? Have you ever suffered a pain, a low point, and you were tempted to think that God had forgotten you? that there was no reason to continue, that you couldn't press on, that you couldn't endure, that you couldn't make it to tomorrow. That is the kind of day that this exiled community has just had. And even Ezekiel being able to go out and speak in a normal way is one of the ways, it's not the only way by any means, it's one of the ways that God is telling them There is still work I have for you to do. Things are not over. Some things are just beginning. My prophet can go out and he can speak with you all. May God give us both the strength to serve through trials and the wisdom to see the new beginnings that he may give to us when a trial reaches its climax. Well, let's come to our second point, eyes opening. This is the book of Ezekiel. We're coming to the turning point. The message from chapters 34 to 48 will primarily be the message of restoration with scattered words of judgment. Whereas the first 33 chapters have been primarily words of judgment with only glimmers of, of hope and restoration. This is the turning point. But even as we come to this turning point, the end of chapter 33 is giving us these warnings. It's warnings for those who are far and warnings for those who are near. Now, before we dig into the first warning, which is a warning for the few survivors who are still in Jerusalem in verses 23 to 29, Before we get into that, let's just stop and say, have you ever thought, why do we talk about sin so much in church? Why do we talk so much about sin? Well, brothers and sisters, it's because the scriptures speak so much about sin. And it is because sin brings its own temptations in every season of life. The temptations for sin never go away, they just change in shape. And so there are warnings against sin. Even as Ezekiel is about to begin a new season of ministry, a season where he's primarily now going to be preaching the message of restoration and hope, It still is a season where he needs to remember these warnings. And they're spoken to Ezekiel. They're spoken to the prophet to keep these warnings in mind and to speak them forth in his continuing ministry. Well, what is the first warning? The first warning is for those few who still remain in Judea. As Jeremiah tells us in Jeremiah 52.16, the Babylonians left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen. And those few who remain, they may be thinking, you know, it's not easy for the whole Babylonian army to make their campaign all the way over here into the land of Israel. Maybe Nebuchadnezzar won't come back anymore. Maybe those first two campaigns are it. And maybe now, you know, we're the few survivors. Maybe now we can just pick up the pieces and everything that's left is for us. This same kind of attitude in some way existed after the first wave of exile. Ezekiel spoke about that in chapter 11, but now it's taking even a different form. These are the few survivors in the waste places of the land of Israel. That's how it's described in the beginning of verse 24. And what is their new saying now? What is it that they are declaring? We see the middle and end of verse 24. They say this, Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land, but we are many. The land is surely given to us to possess. Now you might say, wait a second. Are they many? Are they few? Well, they're, they're very few, but compared to Abraham and Sarah, There are many. Compared to two people, there are many. And so what is their mindset? They're saying, well, okay, there's been two waves of exile. There's been a destruction of Judah, followed by a destruction of now our capital. Now the whole land is destroyed. But, look, there's still some of us. And Nebuchadnezzar might not come back. We've got this now. It's all ours. Never Abraham had, or more than that, we're still in good shape. This is the attitude, this is the popular saying. And to call themselves many compared to Abraham and Sarah, that's technically correct, but they are still making an ignorant and arrogant theological claim. It's possible to make reference to biblical characters and to certain biblical historical truths and yet to do so in arrogance and ignorance and unbelief. And God tells Ezekiel that's exactly what's going on here. First of all, they're showing some level of biblical ignorance. They just get the history wrong. Abraham did not possess the land. He lived in the land of promise, but he did not own anything. He was a sojourner. He was an alien. That's how he described himself. The land was not really possessed and owned until centuries later after his death and after the people were brought out of Egypt and through the wilderness and into the land as a conquering nation to take it over and to own it. So that's one thing, but there's a more significant issue than that going on. It's not just that they got some historical details wrong. The more significant issue is this. Abraham, though a sinner, and we have record of his sins, was a man of faith. He believed in God. He trusted God. He was a man of repentance. These people, those few who remain in the land, are living in all kinds of sin, including the very sins for which all of this destruction has come upon them. And so in verse 25, they're still living in idolatry. In verse 26, they're still living in immorality. And there's no sign of any repentance. There's no sign of going away from this lifestyle of sin. No, they just think, well, we're Israelites. We're the few survivors. This land must be ours. Quite simply, brothers and sisters, we can summarize it this way. Some people never learn. Now again, consider these people in contrast to Abraham. I'm gonna read a few verses from Hebrews chapter 11. That's what we sometimes call the hall of faith. We've moved on from chapter 32, which we were at last week for those who were here, the dishonor role. Now let's consider a little bit the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. And first of all, we can just note that the author of Hebrews gets the historical details right. It speaks about Abraham living in the land of promise, but living in it as in a foreign land and living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs together with him of the same promise. And we read that in verse 9. And then look down at verse 17. still speaking about Abraham after speaking about Sarah as well. We read this in Hebrews 11 verse 17. By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking He did receive him back. Abraham was a man of faith. Abraham, for all of his sins, received the word from the Lord. He took Isaac up to the mountain. He was ready to kill Isaac because he so trusted in the Lord, he said, God will raise my son from the dead if that's how he's going to deliver his promise. That's not how God did it, except for figuratively. God provided the ram caught up in the thicket. Ultimately, Abraham is trusting in the ram, the lamb, Jesus Christ, who had the crown of thorns and thickets twisted and pressed upon his head the day he went to the cross. Abraham was a man of faith. If you're going to claim Abraham's promises, you must be a man, a woman of faith. You cannot associate yourself with Abraham and go on living in all of the sins that brought destruction upon the land, go on living in all of the sins of this age or that age. Abraham was blessed by God ultimately because he was a man of faith and repentance. Well, may the audience in Ezekiel's exile hearing him preach, may their eyes be opened to see that these sins really are what brought the destruction upon the land and to know that those who continue to live in these sins will not be blessed. Your eyes must be opened to see the sinfulness of sin. Whether it is our own sins, which we need to see first, or the sins of others, we need to be able to recognize sin for what it is. Well, now let's come, brothers and sisters, to our third point. Ears opening. And here the warnings come to Ezekiel's neighbors and to, at least indirectly, Ezekiel himself. For seven years, he's labored in this ministry. He's only been able to speak when he's giving that prophetic word. And it has been an unpopular ministry. There's basically one hint in the first 33 chapters of people really being ready to listen to him. And that was the chapter that his wife died. if you remember that sermon. That's the only time we even have a hint that the people are ready to really listen to Ezekiel. For seven years, he has had a ministry against hardened hearts. That's part of the description from all the way back in chapter three. And God gave Ezekiel specific warnings against discouragement and specific encouragements through those years back in the beginning of Ezekiel's call. Ezekiel received the specific word he needed to for endurance through that difficult season of ministry. Now, almost overnight, Ezekiel has gone from being that strange, Prophet doing weird signs about Jerusalem being destroyed and saying that God would do it and saying that God would still have a plan and who is that that guy and We're hardening our hearts against him. He's gone basically overnight from being the unpopular, strange, unbelieved prophet to being the talk of the town. That's not how the text says it. They have a different idiom. They have a different way of saying it. The way it says it in verse 30 is that they're going to talk about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses. Probably, that just means in that very hot land, Where are people going to talk to each other? Wherever there's shade, by the walls and by the houses. It's just the old Hebrew way of saying, you're the talk of the town. This is what everybody's talking about. Overnight, he has gone from being the unpopular minister, struggling through seven years of that painful ministry, that restrained ministry, to being the prophet with the open mouth, who is the talk of the town, who everyone is ready to go hear. And they are at least speaking about this in the right way. They're not just saying, come, let's hear what Jeremiah says. They speak with spiritual significance. Come and hear the word that comes from the Lord. At the end of verse 30, he is recognized as a true prophet of the Lord. So the people come. And so they sit. And they hear what you say. Here's the other warning. There was the warning for those who were far away. There was the warning for those few who are still in Jerusalem, in the waste places of the land. Now here's the warning for the people who are near, for Ezekiel's neighbors. They hear what you say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths they act, and their heart is set on their gain. They think about lustful things. They think about money. They think about what they're going to get out of this life. And so even though they're physically sitting in the right place, their mind and their heart is in the wrong place. Reminds us of the language of the apostle Paul, who once described the enemies of the cross in Philippians chapter three, whose heart is set on earthly things. Brothers and sisters in Christ, not talking about sin and talking about sin too much are both possible. If we worked very slowly through the first 33 chapters of Ezekiel, and we stopped right there, And we never dug in to see the bright light of the glimmers of the salvation message in those chapters. And if we just went line by line into the bloody details of destruction, and we came to the announcement of the destruction, and the continued warnings, and we stopped, and we just talked about sin without any grace, that would be a danger, that would be an error. It is possible to speak about sin too much, especially if we talk about sin without grace, if we talk about sin without Christ. It is a sharp danger, it's a real danger. Brothers and sisters, there is real danger in not speaking about sin enough. For those who are still in the land, for those who are living in all of these open sins and trying to claim everything of the wreckage for their own and doing it all with theological ignorance and arrogance, they need a warning. And you need a warning too. You who are excitedly coming to hear the word of the prophet of the Lord, you still need to hear. about sin. If someone ever says, why do we talk so much about sin in the church? We're already in church. Read Ezekiel chapter 33, verses 30 and 31. And for those who say, well, I don't need any warnings against sin. I don't have any struggles in my life. in terms of earthly things. I'm in a season of blessing. Well, you know what? Verse 32 is essentially a warning against Ezekiel. That's essentially what it is. It's a word a little bit different than the warnings before it. But essentially, in verse 32, we move into a warning for Ezekiel himself. Ezekiel, know this. Know there might be people who just want your lustful songs. What's that? Think about all the songs on the radio. What are so many of them about? Lustful things. They come to hear your lustful voice. They just come to hear you speak. They just come because you're the talk of the town. Ezekiel, know that though the nature of your ministry has changed overnight, there are still things that your heart must be guarded against. Ezekiel received his own warnings and encouragements for his season of of unheard ministry back in chapter 3 and now he receives another warning of ministry. Are you going through a season of great trial or are you living in a season of great blessing? You need warnings against sin and against the different trials and temptations in either of those seasons. We always need to hear about sin. It's not as though the danger of speaking about sin too much without grace and the danger of not speaking about sin enough, it's not like one is a butter knife and the other one is an obsidian knife. They're both sharp and real dangers. The danger of not speaking about sin enough is the one that is more commonly pulled out. We must be on guard against both of these things. We talk about sin because God's word gives us warning against sins in every kind of situation. Well, here's the warnings against sin. Do not come, but then just go out and not do it and think about lustful things. Do not get caught up, Ezekiel. I'm going to paraphrase verse 32. Do not get caught up in your new popularity and your new season of ministry. And do not begin to speak just with a beautiful voice, the words that the people want to hear in order to keep up your popularity. No. In every season, you must speak the Word of the Lord. In every season we must be on guard against sin. In every season we must look for God's grace, God's restoration. And that is the dominant message of the end of Ezekiel. God restores the heart of stone. God makes alive the dry bones. God will build his own city and restore his presence in great glory to to a wondrous temple which really can only be describing a heavenly temple vision in Ezekiel 40 to 48. God is the one who does all these things. God restores. God makes new. God brings salvation. Will this massive event this shaking event of the destruction of the temple, will it lead to just a blip on the radar of spiritual activity? Or will they? Having been prepared for this because God sent his true prophet to say what was going on before it happened, will they be brought to restoration? Praise the Lord that we have a number of of hints in the book of Ezekiel that for many there was true restoration. God used these things to bring the exiles back to himself. Will we just sit in the church pew and even talk excitedly about going to hear the word or will we both hear and do? Will we both hear and be changed? people of God in every season of life. We have sins to confess in every season of life. We have the Savior who restores. We have salvation in Jesus Christ. So we have the full counsel of God's Word. And we move from this point forward to Yes, scattered words of judgment remain, and the warnings against sin always remain, but we do move to a wondrous message of restoration in the final chapters of Ezekiel. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, we pray that you would be working heartfelt change in each and every one of us, that you would be drawing us