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    Ezekiel: A 12-Week Study
    Ezekiel: A 12-Week Study
    Ezekiel: A 12-Week Study
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    Ezekiel: A 12-Week Study

    By Michael Lawrence

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    About this ebook

    The book of Ezekiel proclaims God's uncompromising judgment against his rebellious people—but also his promise of restoration if they repent. Exposing the depth of Israel's disobedience, the prophet Ezekiel calls the nation to find forgiveness by turning away from their sin and back to God.
    Carefully explaining Ezekiel's often confusing prophecies, this study guide will encourage readers to trust in the God who does not abandon his people but restores the repentant for his glory.
    Part of the Knowing the Bible series.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossway Books
    Release dateMar 15, 2018
    ISBN9781433555305
    Ezekiel: A 12-Week Study
    Author

    Michael Lawrence

    Michael Lawrence (PhD, Cambridge University; MDiv, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as the lead pastor of Hinson Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church.

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      Book preview

      Ezekiel - Michael Lawrence

      WEEK 1: OVERVIEW

      Getting Acquainted

      Where is God? This is not a question we typically ask when life is going well. But when the bottom drops out from under us, when everything we take for granted is called into question, this is often the first question we ask. The answer we fear, the answer our circumstances might suggest, is that God has abandoned us and wants nothing to do with us. And our response might be angry protestations that God is not being fair, or denial that anything is wrong in the first place, or despair that things could ever be different. Perhaps we even vacillate between all three of these responses.

      This is the situation facing Ezekiel and his fellow exiles in Babylon. Their world has been upended after they have been included in the first wave of deportees from Judah following Nebuchadnezzar’s initial invasion of the land. At first they maintain hope, but then news arrives that Jerusalem has fallen and the temple has been burned to the ground. Has God abandoned his people for good? Can the dead bones of Israel ever live again (see Ezek. 37:3)?

      Amid alternating anger, denial, and despair on the part of the exiles, God calls Ezekiel to speak his words, and only his words, to them. Otherwise the prophet remains mute for more than five years. Often he is also told to act out God’s message in dramatic street theater, since the people are not inclined to listen. At first his message is an uncompromising and unrelenting pronouncement of judgment on Israel and vindication of God’s justice. But once judgment falls, Ezekiel’s message turns, just as relentlessly, into a message of hope for the restoration of God’s people. Although the people’s sin drove him from their midst as they broke their covenant¹ with him, God will not abandon his people. He will overcome all their enemies and their sin and lead them like a shepherd to safe pastures. Not only will he make a new covenant with them; he will also make them new, and so will dwell with them forever.

      But the message of Ezekiel is not only for exiled Israelites. For all who have put their faith in God and his Messiah, Jesus Christ, the answer to the question, Where is God? is clear: Despite our circumstances, despite our sin, God is with his people. He always has been, and he always will be. (For further background, see the ESV Study Bible, pages 1495–1501; available online at www.esv.org.)

      Placing Ezekiel in the Larger Story

      Like the other major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel), Ezekiel stands at a climactic moment in Israel’s history as the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28:15–68 are finally brought to bear. For centuries, God has patiently borne his people’s treachery, idolatry, and sin, but his patience has finally come to an end. While Isaiah stood at the beginning of this period, and Daniel at the end, Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesy at the white-hot center of Jerusalem’s fall. Jeremiah is in Jerusalem, amid the crashing tumult, with all the confusion and passion we would expect. Already in exile in Babylon, Ezekiel hears and observes events from afar, like distant thunder. As a result, his prophecy is marked by waiting and reflection, long pauses followed by dramatic moments as events occurring months and even years earlier finally burst upon the consciousness of the exilic community.

      In this context, Ezekiel serves not only as the prosecutor of God’s covenant lawsuit, vindicating God’s judgment against his own people; he serves also as pastor to the despairing exiled flock, providing them hope that judgment is not God’s final word to them. If they will repent, God will again be their God and dwell with them, and they with him. Central to this hope is the pouring out of God’s Spirit in a new covenant with a new temple and a renewed worship. This hope will wait centuries more for its fulfillment, but with the coming of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, it has begun. He is the true temple, and in his death and resurrection he has established a new covenant of peace. He is the source of living water, which is the Holy Spirit.² Even now he dwells with his people. While we still await the final fulfillment of Ezekiel’s visions, because of the resurrection we can be confident that the day will arrive when the proclamation that the dwelling place of God is with man (Rev. 21:3) will come to full

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