34 Ezekiel

God's presence remained with the people of Judah who began calling themselves Jews.
Ezekiel was sent by God to tell the Jews that God was still in control, even though Jerusalem was destroyed and they would be under Babylonian rule for a long time. You see the people thought they were special, God’s favorites,nothing would happen to them. Blah blah blah, even if they still did wrong. Big mistake to take all they had for granted.

God didn’t exile the Israelites primarily to punish them. God never has been, nor is He now, interested in punishment for punishment’s sake. Rather, He intended the punishment or judgment in Ezekiel’s day as a means to an end—to bring His people to a state of repentance and humility before the one true God. They had lived for so long in sin and rebellion, confident in their own strength and that of the neighboring nations, that they needed God to remind them of His holy nature and their humble identity in a most dramatic way. After centuries of warnings, prophetic messages, and invasions, God decided that more significant action was required—He had to remove the people from their promised land. Ezekiel ministered to his generation who were both exceedingly sinful and thoroughly hopeless. By means of his prophetic ministry he attempted to bring them to immediate repentance and to confidence in the distant future. Ezekiel communicated in a unique way, dramatizing God's message by using signs, symbols and parables. During the first part of his ministry, he graphically communicated that God's judgment falls as a result of human sin. Now after Babylon took the Jews into exile, Ezekiel spoke words of hope and comfort. Finally Ezekiel describes the millennial temple to which the glory of the Lord will return. God indeed has a future plan for His People.

Ezekiel taught that:

(1) God works through human messengers;
(2) Even in defeat and despair God's people need to affirm God's sovereignty of having supreme power or authority, and that He is the Almighty!;
(3) God's Word never fails;
(4) God is present and can be worshiped anywhere;
(5) People must obey God if they expect to receive blessings; and
(6) God's Kingdom will come.

The major divisions within the book of Ezekiel reveal the purpose of this ministry. In the first half of the book of Ezekiel, Judah is accused of breaking all of God's commandments, and they are warned by God that they will be destroyed if they persist in their sins. After Ezekiel's announcement of Jerusalem's destruction, Ezekiel focuses on an entirely different subject, which is one of comfort and encouragement to the heartbroken Jews. Ezekiel 16 in the bible is probably the most remarkable chapter concerning the love of God for his people in spite of their continuing idolatry and mess ups. He had many predictions.. check out this one.. I will put it into what it would be like today ok.. he Predicted fate of numerous cities and nations.. and here is what it was like.. think about this.

What if I were to give you the following predictions: I could use New York City and Long Island as an example, but instead I will use Nova Scotia

1. Joe Blow (Iran) will destroy all but the island portion of Nova Scotia (Cape Breton).
2. Many nations will fight against Nova Scotia.
3. The debris from the buildings in Nova Scotia will be thrown in the water to access Cape Breton Island.
4. Nova Scotia will be made a bare and flat like the top of a rock.
5. Fishermen will spread their nets over the heap that was once Nova Scotia.
6. Nova Scotia will never be re-built.
7. Nova Scotia's glory will never be restored.
8. I will be laughed at and mocked, and disregarded as a lunatic.

I'm sure the last one is about the only one I would get right! I would certainly have earned my rightful place in the heap of ridicule. What is amazing is that the prophet Ezekiel made these same predictions (except for 8, of course), with Nebuchadnezzar replacing Joe Blow, and Tyre replacing Cape Breton Island - his prophecy was fulfilled to the last detail!

At the time Ezekiel made this prophecy, Tyre was a powerful city holding a stature much like that of Nova Scotia today. Three years after the prophecy Nebuchadnezzar indeed laid siege to the city. The inhabitants all but abandoned the city and moved off-shore to a nearby island, where they fortified themselves and remained a powerful city for several hundred more years. During this time it must have seemed that Ezekiel's prophecy was not wholly correct, but then came Alexander the Great, who eventually built a causeway to the island using debris from the old mainland city of Tyre! More conquerors were to follow. It wasn't until the 12th century A.D. before the final prophetic chapter was closed on the once great city of Tyre. Its fitting that a secular historian would eventually write the following:

...[Tyre] never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now bare as the top of a rock - a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry.

Let's see how well the previous description of present-day Tyre matches what the Bible had to say:

"And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations."

That is right out of the bible .. amazing how that all came true.. that is what the prophets were all about.. predicting what God wanted them to tell the world and then, them all coming true.. You will find hundreds of predictions in the bible, and if they came from Prophets, they all came true. Hundreds I tell ya.. it is amazing.

Now Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel are the big guns in the bible.. they told a lot of the future and warned the people through God.