Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S1 || Unraveling Ezekiel: The Prophet Who Acted Out God's Message || Ezekiel 1:1-13 || Session 1
God speaks loudest when His people aren't listening. The prophet Ezekiel knew this challenge intimately, serving a "hard-headed" community of Jewish exiles who had lost their homeland, their temple, and seemingly their connection to God. Rather than just delivering another sermon, God directed Ezekiel to become a living demonstration—building miniature siege works, tunneling through walls, lying motionless for months, and employing bizarre visual aids that couldn't be ignored.
What makes Ezekiel such a fascinating prophet is how thoroughly God documented His messages. Eleven times throughout this prophetic book, we find precisely dated revelations that create a 22-year ministry timeline beginning July 31, 593 BC. This meticulous dating wasn't just for historical accuracy; it established divine authority for messages that often contradicted what people wanted to hear. While false prophets promised a quick return from exile, Ezekiel delivered the uncomfortable truth that restoration would follow a lengthy period of judgment.
The book's clear three-part structure illuminates God's larger purposes: chapters 1-24 pronounce judgment against rebellious Israel, chapters 25-39 address the surrounding nations, and chapters 40-48 provide hope through promises of future restoration. This organizational framework offers crucial context for interpreting Ezekiel's challenging visions, especially his detailed temple prophecies that have perplexed readers for centuries.
Perhaps most encouraging is the realization that Ezekiel himself was an ordinary person transformed by extraordinary divine encounter. When "the hand of the Lord" came upon him, this displaced priest became a powerful messenger. The same principle applies to us—our effectiveness in ministry doesn't depend on innate abilities but on God's empowering presence working through willing vessels.
Whether you're familiar with prophecy or approaching these ancient texts for the first time, join us in this verse-by-verse exploration of Ezekiel's remarkable visions, dramatic object lessons, and timeless message of judgment and restoration. Subscribe to our podcast and visit reasoningthroughthebible.com for free study materials to help you navigate this prophetic masterpiece.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
The Old Testament prophets are so important to the overall theme of the Bible, but yet they are also so often neglected or unread. We are going to start studying Ezekiel and it's going to be a very rich study. We will see in this book some quite amazing things and, as our usual method, steve, we're going to go verse by verse, but we're going to see some great things in the book of Ezekiel.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to go through this. I say that with every book that we go through, but really, looking at this book, you don't hear it preached that much in the full context of the book From the pulpit or even in Bible studies. There are certain sections of Ezekiel that Bible teachers or pastors want to focus in. But we're going to take the whole book and there's a lot of things, when you look at the whole book of Ezekiel that are just really fascinating and, as you noted before, it's one of the prophets that really speak to many things. So I'm looking forward to going through it in this first portion, talking about this introduction to the book of Ezekiel, before we get to the real meat of the book, a little bit about our ministry.
Speaker 1:We have a ministry we call Reasoning Through the Bible. We do verse-by-verse Bible study through the Word of God. I would direct you to our website, reasoningthThroughTheBiblecom. If you're new to our ministry. You'll find on our website free materials. Our goals and one of our motivations is to help churches and small groups in Bible studies to be able to better teach the Word of God. We offer a lot of things for free. We offer all of our Bible studies and we have lesson plans that you can download for teachers and student guides. We have all kinds of things that are either free or very low cost. We are in the ministry of trying to spread the Word of God and help other people to spread the Word of God. Look at our website, ReasoningThroughTheBiblecom.
Speaker 1:What we generally do is just start at chapter 1, verse 1, and go through the entire book and along the way we try to answer some questions, do a little bit of response to some of the critics of the Scriptures and then answer some theological issues that may pop up. I think you'll find us a little bit unique. We do our best to explain the Word of God with Ezekiel. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit about him before we just jump into the chapters. Ezekiel lived at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Babylon came down and took Israel as captive.
Speaker 1:We have here a prophet in Ezekiel that had a very difficult task before him. I guess many of the prophets had a difficult task, but what he had was a, as God says, an obstinate people. His audience was very hard of hearing. They were very hard-headed, so God was trying to get through to him.
Speaker 1:So we find, as we read through the book of Ezekiel, some very amazing things. Instead of just telling the people, the Jewish people, he's going to act out a great amount of his teachings. Instead of just saying words, he acts out Like, for example, at one point he lays on his side on the ground for over a year. Ezekiel, at one point, builds a clay model of Jerusalem and in the little clay model, like toy soldiers, he lays siege to Jerusalem and invades it. God tells him at one point to lock himself in his house and then tunnel out into the street. He tells Ezekiel to cut his hair and then do different things with the hair. So we have a very strange prophet. He does some strange things, but it's all around communicating God's message against a very interesting book, don't you think?
Speaker 2:It is different than some of the other prophetic books. In what you were just talking about, there is a lot of acting out what God wants to communicate to the nation of Israel, and the other thing is is that God is communicating to the nation of Israel even though they're in captivity in Babylon.
Speaker 1:Talk to us a little bit about the history of this captivity and there was Assyria was involved at one point. Give us a timeline, Steve, of what happens here with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have some maps and some charts here that we're going to go through, glenn just about two or three of them and this will be included in our resource material for our website and it will also be included in our study guides and leader guides in the appendix part. But a little bit of history as far as what's going on is that the nation of Israel split into two and you had the northern portion that retained the name Israel made up of 10 tribes and then the southern part took the name of Judah and it was comprised of two tribes, comprised of two tribes. Assyria came in and took the northern part into captivity around 722 BC and the southern part remained on its own for centuries after that. But when Babylon took over Assyria, babylon finally came down and started attacking Judah to overtake it, and there were actually three ways where those people of Judah were taken into captivity 605 BC, 597 BC and 586 BC, and the 586 BC portion was whenever Jerusalem and the temple was completely torn down by Nebuchadnezzar at that time.
Speaker 1:One of the things I would direct our listeners to, because it took me quite a while just reading the Old Testament to come to terms with this timeline. But I would direct our listeners. If you want to get an idea of the timeline and the fall of both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, read the ends of two books 2 Kings and the end of Jeremiah. Both of those, as far as the chronology, is the time of the fall of Israel and Judah and the end of 2 Kings. The last couple of three, four chapters and the last few chapters of Jeremiah talk about how horrible it was when God allowed these invading nations to come in and destroy the nation. From a big picture, the timeline is, of course.
Speaker 1:God set up Israel back in Genesis with Abraham, isaac and Jacob, and Jacob had 12 sons. They go into Egypt, they come out of Egypt, then we go into the time of the judges and then the time of the kings and at the end of the time of the kings comes this judgment Israel had disobeyed so much that God allowed Assyria and Babylon to come in as a punishment for Israel's disobedience. Many of the prophets Jeremiah and Daniel and Ezekiel all lived approximately the same time. These prophets were speaking against a disobedient Jewish people. They were disobeying God by violating his laws and his moral principles. So God sends Babylon in as a wrathful judgment against a disobedient people. And that's why a lot of times and we're going to see in the book of Ezekiel the prophets really had a message that people didn't want to hear.
Speaker 2:And remember when we went through Zechariah Glenn, it was told there that God said I use Babylon as part of a judgment on you, but yet they went a little bit too far. They went further than what I wanted them to, and so now I'm going to judge them. So he does that. The next slide that we have here just simply shows the area of captivity that they were taken into. You see the Babylonian Empire there, and they're taken from Jerusalem, the Judah area, there, all the way over into Babylon, and you'll see the circle there. That's the area where they settled. All of the captives from Judah were settled in that area.
Speaker 1:All of the captives from Judah were settled in that area, and we're going to see that Ezekiel is there by one of those rivers there that are depicted. The map shows that Babylon, as Babylon proper in any case, was north and northeast of Israel. So they came in as invaders from the north, correct, correct. So they came in as invaders from the north.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct, because you have that vast desert area there, that's difficult terrain to go across. So, yes, any invaders are always coming in from the north or the south whenever they're coming against Israel. The next chart here that we have is simply one that shows the various prophets and also the upper part. There you'll see the different empires. The key thing to show on this particular one, glenn, is that Ezekiel and Daniel are contemporaries of each other.
Speaker 2:Along with Jeremiah, daniel was taken in that first wave from 605. He was taken in that wave to Babylon. He ends up serving in the court of the king Nebuchadnezzar. We have that whole story in Daniel that when we go through that we'll break that down. And Ezekiel then is taken in the second wave over into Babylon, but he's not serving in the king's court. He is out there just in the area where the captives are. And then you have Jeremiah. Jeremiah is also a prophet during this time, but Jeremiah is never taken out of the land. His prophecies are before the Babylonian invasion and the captivity and he remains in the land with his prophecies of the Judah people, the Israelites, the southern kingdom of Judah, to repent and to turn back, to change their mind about God, and of course, they don't do that, and so they're finally taken over into captivity.
Speaker 2:Then the last one that we have here that we want to show is this chart. That relates to what I have here is eschatology. People want to know what's happening in the latter days, the end of this age, what the restored kingdom? When is that going to happen? That was a question that was often talked about by the disciples. Is now the time that you're going to restore the kingdom, because that was one of the things the Messiah was going to do.
Speaker 2:Glenn, as we talk through this, many times, people and Bible teachers, they want to go to some of the key areas of Revelation. Obviously, that talks about end time, and then we have the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. We've gone through both of those, as we've gone through those two books already. We have those verses that Paul talks about in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and then we have Daniel. People say rightfully so, in order to really understand Revelation, you need to look at Daniel.
Speaker 2:But what I think is left out of it, glenn, many times, are that the prophets, the prophets themselves Jeremiah, isaiah, ezekiel, daniel, zechariah, malachi, all these other prophets are actually the foundation, I think, in really understanding end-time events, because in those particular prophets they over and over repeat there's going to be a restored kingdom of Israel. You're going to be restored and that's going to be one of the messages that Ezekiel is going to have for the people while they're in captivity is that the kingdom is going to be restored, even though you're under judgment now, sometime in the future there's going to be a restored kingdom and we'll talk about that when we get to it in Ezekiel. We went through it when we went through in Ezekiel. We went through it when we went through Zechariah. We went through it when we went through Nehemiah.
Speaker 2:When we get to some of the other prophets, we'll see that same pattern. But God is giving His people hope, even though they're under a judgment. To understand the prophets really to me is and I think you as well, to me is and I think you as well is a foundation that people don't really go to. They want to go to those areas that I talked about of Daniel, thessalonians, the Olivet Discourse and Revelation, but really to get a good feel of how God is working and how he is working with the nation of Israel, it's really in the prophets and understanding them.
Speaker 1:I would agree, the places that are typically viewed as looking at end times, like you said, book of Revelation, olivet Discourse, places like that and I would even include, like the Gospels, the people that would be listening to Christ's teaching and listening to these New Testament things would be intimately familiar with these Old Testament prophets. When the New Testament speaks of these themes, the listeners oh yeah, that's what they meant back in the prophets, just as an example, olivet Discourse. They meant back in the prophets, just as an example, olivet Discourse. At one point in there Jesus talks about in those days the sun's going to be darkened and the moon's going to turn to blood.
Speaker 1:Those are direct quotes out of Isaiah. Well, the context in Isaiah is talking about God pouring out wrath on the nations. So these Old Testament prophets are really keys to unlocking a lot of these New Testament language that gets used Because we've so neglected the Old Testament prophets. Then we oftentimes get off track when we're trying to interpret books like Revelation and the Olivet Discourse and so on. I just feel that there's such rich ground back here in these prophets that we really need to spend a little more time studying them. We do it before we really get into the real sexy, sizzly stuff in 2 Thessalonians and places like that Before we kind of dive more into the Ezekiel itself.
Speaker 2:I want to concur with you that I agree with that. That's why it's a ministry like what we have, where we go verse by verse, through each book of the Bible. I think that's where we have a ministry that people should want to listen to and want to share with their friends, because we are going to go through each one of those books. For ones that want to know and delve deeper into these prophets, this is the perfect ministry for you to be able to do that, as we go through each of these books.
Speaker 1:Now a little bit about this man, ezekiel. In the first part of the book, god appears to Ezekiel and calls him into ministry. That act of calling his prophet into ministry is something that happens to multiple people across the Bible. It happened to Isaiah, happened to the Apostle Paul. God will make a very dramatic appearance at the beginning and make an impression on these men and use that to get their attention and call them into ministry. So we have here, especially in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, we have God calling Ezekiel into ministry. So we have here, especially in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, we have God calling Ezekiel into ministry. Really, most all of chapter 1 is this arrival of God making this wonderful impression upon the prophet. We see a similar thing when we just read and we'll get into the text momentarily these very fantastic things that he's seeing in this vision of God. Well, we see similar things when God first appeared to people like Isaiah.
Speaker 1:Towards the beginning of Isaiah, chapter 6, isaiah also describes a very amazing things that he sees that God had revealed to him to call him into ministry.
Speaker 1:Isaiah 6 talks about quote in the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple and then he goes on to talk about flying seraphim around the throne and God's voice speaking, and when God spoke it shook the foundations of the temple and the temple is filled with smoke. We see these very amazing sights whenever God calls his prophets into ministry. Their response is always similar they tremble in fear and fall on their face and become very aware of their own sin. I think this is one key to getting them to last through the criticism that they're going to get from the Jewish people, because all of these prophets had a real hard time of it and if they didn't have God's Spirit and God's direction to keep them on the right path, I'm sure a lot of them would have said, hey, I want to give up and go back to the easy life.
Speaker 2:But because God makes this dramatic appearance to them and gives them a special anointing of the Holy Spirit, then I think they then have the power and the resolve to continue through their ministry, because Ezekiel has kind of a hard life, does he not, steve he does because, as we noted at the very beginning, god is calling him to act out a lot of the messages that he's sending to the people that are in captivity there, while part of it is encouragement, it takes a toll, I think, on Ezekiel for him to go through these various things that God wants to use him in order to kind of like an object lesson of using Ezekiel to communicate with not just his words but with his actions. In fact, one of them, whenever his wife dies, god equates that to the fall of Jerusalem. You know that it's got to take a toll on Ezekiel, on the different things that God is calling him to do.
Speaker 1:God appears to Ezekiel to call him into ministry. God has a dramatic appearance to Isaiah at the beginning of his ministry. God has a dramatic appearance to the Apostle Paul when he calls him into ministry. I think many of us, we don't have necessarily a dramatic appearance of God, but I think he does call us into ministry.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and for today, get our foot in the door and read the first few verses of chapter 1 of Ezekiel. We can find here the actual setting of the book. So I'm reading at chapter 1, verse 1 of the prophet Ezekiel. Now, it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar amongst the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month, in the fifth year of King Jehoiakim's exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel, the priest son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar, and there the hand of the Lord came upon him. Now this opens up with a year and a day and a month and we see, as we look across the entire book of Ezekiel, 11 times in the book of Ezekiel he documents the day, the month and the year that the prophecy came to him. Now I think we can learn a couple of things about this.
Speaker 1:One Ezekiel is documenting a historical fact. It would be the same as if we filed a legal document with the government. We would want to know who it is that is making this document. What day did they do it on? Where were they? Things like that. This is evidence. He's documenting the evidence of where he was, who he was. It says he was a priest and who was his genealogy and what day, month and year it was. If this was our day, it would be filed down at the courthouse with the government. It was. If this was our day, it would be filed down at the courthouse with the government. And the date here that he mentions the 30th year, the fifth day of the month no secret to this it was July 31st, 593 BC. So of course he's not using our modern calendar, but he's saying there exactly when it happened. So 11 times in the book of Ezekiel and we'll see this as we go through the book he documents the day, the month and the year that the word of the Lord came to him. We can use it first of all, as evidence of the fact that it happened. Secondly, we can also use it as an organizing tool for the book, because those were the times when God gave him a new message.
Speaker 1:Now the book is really from a without getting into tedium here about the organization of it but it's very structured. It follows a very clear outline and it's very clear. Once you understand the large progression in the book, then all the pieces kind of fall into place. The first major section of the book talks about the destruction of Israel. The middle section of the book talks about the destruction of the Gentile nations and the last section of the book talks about the restoration of Israel. The first section talks about the destruction of Israel, the last section talks about the restoration of Israel and the middle he deals with the Gentiles and that helps us to understand and give an interpretation tool to the prophecy.
Speaker 1:Why do we think? What we think about the visions of the temple? Is that future, is it current, is it symbolic? Is there going to be a future temple? Well, the outline of the book helps us with that and we'll deal with that when we get to it. But again, ezekiel is very organized and if you just don't get lost in the amazing actions that Ezekiel's doing. The message he's giving is pretty clear, don't you think, steve?
Speaker 2:It is clear and because we go verse by verse through each one of them and we're not diving into the latter parts of Ezekiel, as I mentioned before, there's teachers and pastors that want to go and talk about those Gentile nations coming against Israel in the latter part of Ezekiel. Starting out from verse 1 in chapter 1 and going through it helps give that structure that's going to be needed to where, when we get to those sections, we're going to be able to determine is it something that's going to be yet in the future or something that's already happened?
Speaker 1:Now time-wise again, he gives in these first three verses what we just read. He says in the 30th year. Many of the Bible scholars think that that was Ezekiel's 30th year. That would have been the year that he, by Jewish custom, would have become a mature priest. It says here he was a priest, would have become a mature priest. It says here he was a priest, but fifth day of the fourth month and in the second verse fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiakim's exile. With that we have a starting point for the book of Ezekiel. If we follow these dates as we go through the book, it covers about a 22-year period and get into the years. But it starts again in July 31st 593, and follows for about 22 years. That was his ministry. The first few verses tell us here what we just read about. Ezekiel is in captivity. Steve, what do we know about this captivity? He mentions this Kibar River, so we can place that, can we not? Within.
Speaker 2:Babylon we can place it. We had that showing on the map that we looked at a while ago. It's a river that feeds into the Euphrates River and it's right there, in that area of where the exiles from Israel, from Judah, were taken. It also shows us that they weren't under slavery. They were captives and taken out of their homeland, but they weren't put into slavery. Ezekiel has a house, as I noted before. Daniel is in the king's court and he is there with a couple of his friends, and he is there with a couple of his friends. So we see that while they're exiled, they're at least not under being slaves like they were in Egypt before.
Speaker 1:He says again in verse one, while I was by the river Kibar among the exiles. That tells us he's in Babylon with the exiles from Jerusalem that had come up as captivity into Babylon. Exiles were Jewish people that had been taken captive by the Babylonians. That tells us a lot about his message. As we go through the book. The people had just been this is the early part of the exile and the Jewish people were listening to false prophets saying this is not going to last very long. We're going to be able to go back home pretty soon With that Ezekiel's getting a word from the Lord and as we go through we're going to find out that God has an actually different message, does he not?
Speaker 2:Oh, he absolutely does, and remember before when we looked at that chart. Ezekiel is a contemporary of Daniel, daniel, towards the latter part of it, it notes there it says, as Daniel was reading from Jeremiah, jeremiah is again as a prophet. That is still back in the land, and he hasn't been taken into exile. In Jeremiah it's noted that they are going to be in exile for 70 years. Daniel sees that written about in Jeremiah, and then he has this great prayer that he goes through on behalf of the nation of Israel as to acknowledging their sin and what they have done wrong, but this exile that they're in is going to last for 70 years. We see that in Daniel and from Jeremiah.
Speaker 2:Another curious thing is, though, is that decades later, when we pick up with Nehemiah, nehemiah has this burden to go back and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Well, that's over 100 years later. Nehemiah is a cupbearer to the king Artaxerxes. At that particular time, we see that, even though they get to go back and rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, there are still some of them that remain there in Babylon as these years progress. Once again, looking at all of Scripture in context helps us to be able to put this story completely together.
Speaker 1:The first part of verse 3 says the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel. In the last part of the same verse, the hand of the Lord came upon him. In the last part of the same verse, the hand of the Lord came upon him. So if we were to ask ourselves what made Ezekiel effective in his ministry, the answer is that the hand of the Lord was upon him Before the word of the Lord came to him. And before the hand of the Lord was upon him, ezekiel was nothing special, just a man, just an average person just like you and me. Nothing special.
Speaker 1:What made Ezekiel special was the message he gave and the fact that the hand of the Lord was upon him and gave him the energy and the ability to give the message. It's the same thing with us, is it not? In the sense that we're nothing special. But what makes us special is when the Word of the Lord comes to us and the Holy Spirit comes in us and the hand of the Lord is upon us. Then we can go out and do ministry, then we can learn the Word of God. Just like Ezekiel needed the Word of God and he needed the hand of the Lord upon him, all of us do as well, do we not?
Speaker 2:Oh yes, and Ezekiel is very explicit in these coming verses that it's the Spirit of the Lord that comes on him and makes him stand up. We'll see that depicted over and over again in Ezekiel as well.
Speaker 1:We'll get into this fantastic vision in chapter one next time, as we will reason through the book of Ezekiel.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
