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CONNIE: So, what would you do if you looked out across the valley one day and saw a bunch of four-headed creatures flying your way? Join us today as we look at the visions and ministry of the prophet Ezekiel. Giving God's trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I'm Lonnie Melashenko. You know, Connie, when you consider the book of Ezekiel, certainly one of the most memorable parts has to be the way he introduces himself. I almost think that if I'd seen what he saw, I'd be inclined to just kind of keep it to myself, you know. For fear people would think I'd gone completely off my rocker!

CONNIE: I think I might be tempted to do the same. Here's Ezekiel's description of what he saw, taken from chapter 1:

I saw a windstorm coming out of the north-- an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf. . . . Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. (Ezekiel 1:4-10 NIV)

LONNIE: That's a pretty strange vision all right.

CONNIE: It's hard to even try to conceive in your mind, or try to draw a picture of flying beasts with so many different faces.

LONNIE: I'm afraid that if someone came to me today and started telling me about seeing four-headed flying creatures, I'd be tempted to think they were just a UFO fanatic or something. But for Ezekiel this was his introduction to life as a prophet of God.

CONNIE: Ezekiel lived in difficult times, and perhaps that's why God used such a strange vision to get his attention, and the attention of the people he was to speak to.

LONNIE: And now, in order to help us get into and understand the message of Ezekiel, Ken Wade is going to share with us a bit of the background to the times in which this book was written.

KEN: When you think of the prophet Ezekiel, what comes to mind? Is it the four-faced beasts flying around with wheels chasing them, described in chapter 1 that Lonnie and Connie mentioned? Or did your mind run immediately to Ezekiel's famous vision of the valley full of dry bones? Or maybe you thought of the prophecy concerning Gog and Magog? Perhaps someone thought about Ezekiel's fantastic vision of the restored temple and Holy City in chapters 40-43.

Let's face it, there's a lot in the 48 chapters of the book of Ezekiel that we could talk about on our program today, and we won't be able to cover it all. In Lonnie's message, he'll be focusing on one aspect that draws the whole book together--the message that God wants to put His Spirit into His people and give them new life.

But in order to understand why this message was so important at the time that it was given; let's take a moment review the historical backdrop of the book.
Ezekiel had his first vision in 593 BC. Now, four years earlier, in 597 BC there was a crucial turning point in the history of God's people in the Promised Land. I guess you could say that's the year things really started to fall apart--especially for people like Ezekiel, who apparently came from a high-ranking family of priests.

There'd been a lot of conflict in Jerusalem in the dozen years leading up to 597. Back in 609 BC, the great king Josiah had marched out of the city in full battle array to oppose the Egyptian army that was marching through his territory. But King Josiah was wounded in battle and died in Jerusalem that summer. His son Jehoahaz took the throne--but only for 3 months. When the Egyptian Pharaoh came back through the land, he took the new king back to Egypt with him as a captive and put Jehoahaz's brother Jehoiakim on the throne.

A few years later, though, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar chased the Egyptians out of Judah, and King Jehoiakim had to switch allegiance and begin paying tribute to the Babylonians. For a few years he walked a sort of tightrope between Egypt and Babylon, but finally he jumped off the rope and declared his independence.

Then in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died about that time--he may actually have been assassinated by some his subjects who were angry with him for his role in bringing the Babylonians' wrath down on the city. Soon after Jehoiakim's death the city surrendered--apparently without putting up much of a fight, and Nebuchadnezzar put a new king on the throne, with orders to raise a stiff tribute and send it to Babylon every year. When the Babylonians marched away, they took many of the leading citizens of the city with them. And that's how Ezekiel ended up living in Babylon. He was among the captives who were marched away in chains and forced to settle in Babylon.

Four years after this tragedy, God called Ezekiel to be a prophet--to deliver divine messages to the captives in Babylon, as well as to the people who had stayed in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah had been prophesying all along, calling the people to repent of their sins, lest something worse come upon them. But no one much was listening. They thought everything was AOK with them--that God's judgments had already been poured out, and that since they hadn't been carried away into exile, they must be doing just fine in His eyes. They wouldn't believe Jeremiah when he told them they still needed to repent and turn with their whole hearts to the Lord.

It was in those circumstances that God called Ezekiel.

Ezekiel's prophecies, coming from one who was already suffering captivity at the hands of the Babylonians, were like an exclamation point added to the messages of Jeremiah. Ezekiel saw amazing things and delivered astounding messages--often acting out parables in ways calculated to startle the people.
Unfortunately, most people still didn't pay much attention. They continued their rebellion against God, and against the Babylonians, despite all the warnings from both Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And just 5 years after Ezekiel began his ministry; Nebuchadnezzar's armies marched against Jerusalem again. This time they didn't stop with just a siege. They utterly destroyed the city, burning its buildings, including the temple of the Lord, to the ground.

But the Lord didn't stop speaking to His people through His prophets. Ezekiel continued his ministry for at least 15 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, explaining why God had allowed disaster to come on His people, and encouraging them to look to the future--to a time when His Spirit would once again be poured out on His children, and they would be empowered to live for Him.

Ezekiel lived in difficult times and delivered a difficult message. His prophecies provided warnings of disaster to come, understanding of why the disaster had come, and best of all, hope for the future.

His messages emphasized the importance of maintaining strong faith in God, and pointed forward to a time when the grace of God would restore those who had learned to trust fully in the Lord.

CONNIE: Thanks, Ken. And that's also the message of one of the best-known songs based on Ezekiel's vision, Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, sung for us now by the Good News Singers.

CONNIE: That was the Good News Singers from Caldwell, Idaho, singing "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel."

LONNIE: And we always like to remind you that if you enjoy the music you hear on our broadcast, you can go to our web page at VOP.COM and click on the musical notes near the top of the page, it'll take you to a page listing all the music heard on recent broadcasts, including information about how you can get copies of many of the CDs we play.

CONNIE: You'll find many more resources there at VOP.COM also, including the opportunity to read a transcript of our program, or to listen to our daily and weekend programs via streaming audio.

LONNIE: It's amazing, Connie, how many people do listen to our program via the Internet. We've had to continually expand capacity, so that more people can listen at the same time without overloading the server, and we're glad to do that.

CONNIE: So, please, if you're on the Internet, stop by and visit us at VOP.COM. You'll find lots of resources there, including a bookstore, lists of music, and transcripts of both our weekend show and our daily program.

LONNIE: You can also contact us by calling our toll-free number 1-800-872-0055, and you just might want to do that this week because we have a brand new offer for you--a very interesting book that's closely related to the programs we'll be doing over the next several months focusing on the prophetic books of the Bible. It's a book called Prophecy Made Easy by Glen Walker. In 256 pages, this book looks at most of the major prophecies in the Bible and shows how they point to Jesus and reveal what we can expect in the future.

CONNIE: The cost of this book is just $12.00, which you can charge to a credit card when calling us at 1-800-872-0055.

LONNIE: I think you'll really enjoy this book, so why not give us a call today and ask for Prophecy Made Easy. We do request a donation of $12 or more when requesting it, so have a credit card ready when calling.

CONNIE: And we'll share our mailing address in a few moments as well, in case you prefer to write to us. But right now it's time for Lonnie's message, "Ezekiel--Hope for the Future."

Ezekiel--Hope for the Future

That's right, Connie, as we look at the book of Ezekiel, we're going to focus on his message of "Hope for the Future." As Ken pointed out in our earlier segment, Ezekiel was a prophet who lived in very difficult, trying, discouraging times. A time when many people thought all hope was lost. It seemed that no matter what they did, things kept going from bad to worse.

Perhaps the hopelessness of the situation is best summed up in chapter 21, verse 4, where the Lord reveals that things in Judah have gotten so bad that He is bringing judgment on the land that will spare no one, neither the righteous nor the wicked. Here's the word of the Lord as revealed to Ezekiel:
"I will cut off both righteous and wicked from you, therefore My sword shall go out of its sheath against all flesh from south to north" (Ezekiel 21:4 NKJV).
Imagine how you would feel if you were living in Jerusalem, and you heard a prophecy like this. Would you feel a sense of hopelessness? Would you be tempted to say something like this: "WOW! It doesn't matter at all what I do from now on--it's not going to make any difference."

Now, bear in mind that this discouraging prophecy came from Ezekiel, the same prophet who just a year earlier had relayed a more optimistic view of the future from the Lord in these words:

" 'If a man is just and does what is lawful and right; . . . If he has walked in My statutes and kept My judgments faithfully-- he is just; he shall surely live!' Says the Lord God."

That comes from Ezekiel 18, a chapter that sets forth a fundamental principle of our human relationship to God. Chapter 18 looks at a question that was very important in the minds of the people living in Ezekiel's day--when tragedy came, was it because of what they had done, or because of what their ancestors had done?

Ezekiel responds with a very plain message from God: You're not being punished for what someone else did, you're being punished for your own sins.
That's a hopeful message. It makes it plain that a person could change their circumstances by repenting and turning back to the Lord.
But then we come to chapter 21, a message written by Ezekiel just a year later. And in it the Lord reveals that judgment is coming, and because of the scope of the tragedy, no one will be spared its effects. "I will cut off both righteous and wicked from you," the Lord says.

We've all heard stories, haven't we, of a great tragedy--an earthquake or tornado--and how in the midst of great loss of life, one or two people have been spared. And we wonder why--were they somehow more righteous than the thousands around them who suffered?

And we wonder--if I just do everything right--go to church daily, or at least weekly, say my prayers, pay my tithe, and help the homeless, doesn't that guarantee some sort of protection from God?
We'd like to think that the world was organized on that principle, but the fact is that when evil comes, when tragedy strikes, the righteous and the wicked usually suffer together. In fact, Satan especially delights in attacking those who are closest to God. A tornado roaring through town seldom jumps over the churches and hits only the strip joints.

And that's the kind of situation that Ezekiel is describing. Only in this instance, it's not just some natural disaster like a tornado that's going to strike everyone. This time it's a judgment from the Lord Himself--in the form of conquering armies coming from the north. Armies that will destroy everything--good people's houses along with bad people's houses. The temple of the Lord, along with the houses of prostitution.

And the natural question in such circumstances is, What hope is there, then? If even the righteous won't be spared, should we just abandon all hope?
Fortunately, the answer to that question, in Ezekiel's own prophecy, is a resounding NO! Because despite the negative short-term forecast, Ezekiel sees something better just over the horizon. Because the Lord also gave him a vision of a better future. I'm reading from Ezekiel 37:

"The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. . . . And He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' So I answered, 'O Lord God, You know.' Again He said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, "O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 'Thus says the Lord God to these bones: 'Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live' " ' " (Ezekiel 37:1-5 NKJV).

In this amazing vision, Ezekiel is taken to just about the most depressing place on earth: A valley full of bones--human bones, lying scattered around after a great slaughter--an ethnic cleansing, or perhaps a horrible battle. A deathly still valley filled with the ghastly reminders of lost human lives.

In his day, a valley full of dried up bones would indicate that something particularly terrible had taken place, for one of the worst curses you could put upon a person was to tell them that when they died there would be no one to bury their body--they'd be left for the dogs, birds, and wild animals to devour.
So what Ezekiel sees is the aftermath of the fulfillment of the very thing he had been compelled to predict: The coming of an army that would destroy everything in its path, not even leaving enough people alive to bury the dead.
But as Ezekiel looks on, God has another message for him: "Speak to these bones," the Lord says. And when Ezekiel obeys, things suddenly begin to happen. There are signs of life in the valley, as the Spirit of God begins to move among the bones. He says:

" 'As I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live." ' " So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army' " (Ezekiel 37:7-10 NKJV).

This is Ezekiel's vision of hope for the future. He sees the breath--the Spirit of God--coming upon his nation, and suddenly where there had been only death, there is life.

And when this prophecy is fulfilled, it will fulfill another of Ezekiel's prophecies as well. In chapter 36, Ezekiel shares another encouraging message from the Lord, telling of how he will bring life where there has been only death. Speaking to His people who have suffered judgment, the Lord says:

"Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them" (Ezekiel 36:25-27 NKJV).

Isn't that a beautiful picture of what God wants to do for us?
I have to tell you in all honesty that reading some parts of the book of Ezekiel can be a bit depressing--it can be a "downer" so to speak. Because Ezekiel was compelled to paint graphic pictures of the devastation that would come upon his people as a result of their rebellion against God.

But as always in the Bible, flashing out from amidst the dark storm clouds are rays of light. And Ezekiel 36:26 has to be one of the brightest rays in all of the Old Testament. God's promise that He will return to His people, clean them up, reclaim them, give them new hearts, and place His Spirit within them to give them new life!

It's a beautiful image of what God wants to do for each and every one of us each and every day of our lives.

Friend, what about you? Has your spiritual experience by any chance become dry, dusty, and in need of new life? I hope not. But if it has, be sure that God's promise is for you. If you'll come to Him, He'll pick you up, clean you up, breathe His Spirit into you, and give you a new heart that beats in rhythm with His own heart of love.