Herbert W Armstrong

   On another subject, uh, this, uh, Monday, let's see, this is the Wednesday, the day before yesterday in Tucson, Mr. Armstrong had, uh, a ministerial luncheon with the ministers. And they have there in Tucson about one-tenth of the ordained ministers, including elders, of the Worldwide Church in the whole world. They have about 64, I think it is 64 or 65 ministers and elders, and there are about 660 around the world, so about 10% of them are there in Tucson. And even though we have 86 sites around the world, that's only one, they have their one-tenth of the ministers, approximately.

   Mr. Armstrong talked to the ministers about 45 minutes. And of course you all know that he's senile and that he has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. And he doesn't know what's going on and so on and so forth. Anyway, he's got a new idea, I guess, from what I heard. He wants to have a new magazine. He wants to have a magazine and I don't know whether this will be the title, but at least this is a possible title, Youth Today. I thought I'd mention that, not to try to scoop him writing about it, but just to give you one little hint about some of the things that are on his mind. And of course this, uh, he wants to, uh, orient this towards the youth of the church. And what we'll develop, of course, we'll only have to wait and see, but I thought I would mention that Armstrong has lots of ideas, a lot of things that he wants to do, and he's drawing full steam ahead. Now a lot of people would like for him to drop dead or wish he would have stayed dead, but God hasn't accommodated them and I don't think he is for a while.

   On another subject, I might mention that I've had the privilege of visiting many of the churches in the United States during the past year and, uh, I'm not, uh, tallied up lately, but, uh, uh, based on previous, uh, tallies that I have made, I think I have been probably to at least 60 different churches on the Sabbath in the past year. And I have enjoyed that immensely. I appreciated it. It's certainly been an honor and a privilege to me. I'm glad that my wife was able to go with me for many of those places, to many of those places. Some of them were on trips on the G2 that she was not able to go, uh, to go with us on, uh, but I just mentioned that to let you know that I've been to a lot of churches and in my evaluation, the churches are doing very well.

   Now some people would like you to believe otherwise, but if anybody has tried to get you to believe otherwise, that you know, the church is in terrible shape and the people are this way or that way or the other way. If you have any questions about it, I think when you came to the feast, you found out that it wasn't that way. Things are going quite well in the church. We haven't arrived yet. We have a long way to go. There are going to be more trials, more tests, more difficulties along the way, and Satan isn't through yet. He hasn't been bound and thrown into the abyss yet, and he will be very busy between now and that particular time. But God's on his throne and he is more powerful, and if we'll do our part and draw close to God and stay close to God, then we'll be able to weather the storms that are ahead.

   Well, I thought I'd make those, uh, general comments, uh, before I get to the subject that I wanted to cover this evening. And, uh, the subject I wanted to cover this evening has sort of come about in an evolutionary way. And by that I don't mean, uh, in the way that people speak of the origin of the species or the origin of mankind or whatever, but, uh, how I happened to select the particular subject came about because of several steps.

   Now I wondered when I found I was going to have the opportunity to speak tonight, what I should talk about. And after I've given it some thought, I thought that what I would do this evening is to actually give you an introduction to tomorrow's sermon. Tomorrow morning, sermon, but now there's a problem, at least from my point of view, on what the sermon should be for tomorrow.

   Now, we as ministers, of course, are commanded to, uh, give meat in due season. So the subject that I'm going to speak about tonight and more particularly tomorrow is already, uh, set. You know, it has to do with the day which began sunset, didn't it? We're in the Last Great Day right now. And so what I want to talk to you about relates to that. But, I don't want to comprehensively cover that subject. Otherwise, what would Mr. Armstrong talk about tomorrow? Now, I don't know what Mr. Armstrong is going to say. I don't know what scriptures he's going to use because there are many that relates to the subject of this day and what this day represents. But rather than trying to cover it comprehensively, which I should not do, that's that's something that he should do. What I decided to do was to, uh, cover one particular aspect of it. Actually, for that matter, really a specific text relating to this day and what it represents.

   Now, tomorrow, when I get to this, I'll be covering a little bit more of what I'll be covering this evening, but, uh, most of what I'll be talking about tomorrow will center around one particular chapter in the Old Testament and its relationship to this particular day.

   Now you've already heard, I think, uh, this morning and, uh, since we got there the day before, comments about this day and what it represents. And I'm sure you've also read the articles in the Good News and if you've been here in previous feasts, you've heard quite a bit on this particular day as to what the day represents. And of course, it represents a time when the dead, small and great, are going to stand before God in what is called sometimes the Great White Throne of Judgment. It's a time when, as I said, the dead are going to be resurrected. And then those people, will understand the Bible as we have been able to understand the Bible. In fact, they will have more opportunities that way than we have had. So they will, they too will have their opportunity to learn God's ways and to be converted. And when you come to understand that, to me, that's about the best news that I could think of. Now we talk about the good news of the world tomorrow. Well, this is the best of that good news in my estimation.

   Now the text that I wanted to cover tomorrow is Ezekiel 37. No use to turn to it because we're, we're not going to turn there. We'll leave that for tomorrow. We'll pass by it after a while. We'll, we'll fly fast through those particular pages maybe. Maybe we get that far.

   Now since we're going to talk about Ezekiel 37 tomorrow, what I wanted to do was to cover it in context. Now always before, whenever I have preached on this particular day, uh, that is one of the last texts that I would cover. And I would just cover a few verses, and the appropriate verses and the beginning part of chapter 37, but not at all have time to cover the context of that chapter. So tonight I want to lead up to that. And then tomorrow I want to give you the introduction that leads to that.

   Well briefly, the book of Ezekiel is going to be reviewed this evening and also tomorrow. And, uh, it's going to have to be so brief that we're not going to cover many chapters, major sections of the book, which I feel are not necessary to cover at this particular time, but there are many chapters that deal specifically with Gentile kingdoms and what's going to happen to them. And what I want to emphasize relates more particularly to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Or you might say the house of Jacob or the family of Jacob.

   So this evening, I want to go through, as I said briefly, the book of Ezekiel. Now, Ezekiel, is probably most of you realize, was a man who was a prophet. But he was a priest, the Bible tells us, and of the family of Zadok, which was the family of priests that remained faithful during the time of David and Solomon, where the family of, I think it was Abiathar did not.

   Now this man Ezekiel was taken captive about 596 B.C. with King Jehoiachin. Or Jehoiakim. It might be pronounced either way, probably more correctly with the K sound instead of the CH sound as we use it. So he was taken captive about 596 B.C.

   Now the Jews, some of them had been taken captive about 8 or 9 years before this. At least some of them, not all of them. The first deportation, the first captivity took place at that time, and then from that time for the next 19 years, various deportations took place and finally the city of Jerusalem was captured and most of the people, not all of them, most of the people were taken into captivity.

   Now he starts his prophecy 5 years after this captivity of King Jehoiachin. Another, in other words, about 13 years or so into the beginning of the captivity. He starts at 5 years later, about 591 B.C. And at that time, apparently he was 30 years old. Now it may be that he was a different age, but there's one indication that the one statement would indicate his age of 30. Some think that it indicates something else. And he continued to prophesy until 569 B.C. approximately, or 22 years later. The whole book then covers a span of about 22 years. I'll be giving you the dates from time to time as we go through this book. And the dates that I will be giving you are probably, and I say probably accurate to within plus or minus 1 year, and, uh, maybe there might be an error in addition or subtraction or whatever, so it might be off a little bit, but say it's pretty close, quite accurate.

   Now, there's something rather unique about the prophecies of Ezekiel. And that is that his prophecies, you will find are dated. Now, there are other prophecies that are dated from time to time in the Bible, but none so meticulously as Ezekiel because Ezekiel gives you for each prophecy, the day, the month and the year. Now, I don't mean that no other prophecies give you the day, month, or year. But his are systematically arranged in that way. And there are 13 separate ones, 13 separate dates, you might say 13 specific visions or prophecies that Ezekiel was given by God. And presumably when he gives us a date and starts a particular prophecy, presumably that particular date on that day or very shortly after that, the whole prophecy of that section was given.

   Now, in addition to that, he also subdivides some but not all of those particular prophecies by a statement that I'll point out to you when, uh, well, maybe we should just look to it, look at it right now. One example, Ezekiel 6:1. This was repeated many times. Maybe I should point out chapter 1, verse 1 to start with (Ezekiel 1:1). "In the 30th year, in the 4th month on the 5th day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the River Chebar, the heavens were opened and I saw visions." And so then he describes what he sees and what he is told.

   Then when he comes to chapter 6, verse 1, he says "the word of the Eternal came to me." Now this sort of subdivides this particular prophecy. And chapter 7 verse 1, there's another such place, and we'll see as we go through the book that there are numerous examples of that. One, he says now the word of the Eternal came to me, of course, the word Eternal, as we say, or Lord capital L, O, R, D, and so forth, uh, in the Hebrew is Yah, Y H V H. So the word of YHVH came to him.

   Now does this mean that he heard voices and God spoke to him? It could have meant that. But also when we look in the New Testament, we find that Jesus Christ is the word there in the Greek rather than the Hebrew, the word is Logos or logos, L O G O S. You'll find that in the first chapter of John. So Jesus Christ, who was the God of the Old Testament, is also called the word. It may mean that the word Jesus Christ, who also was Yahweh, came personally to Ezekiel and spoke to him face to face. It may be that God spoke to a face to face in a vision. Or maybe just the words came to him. We don't know. It doesn't matter particularly, but whenever that happens, it seems like it's taking us into a different phase or a different subject, different aspect of whatever he is covering at that particular point.

   Now the prophecies, these 13 prophecies are not all in chronological order. In other words, you don't start at a particular date and then the next succeeding date and the next succeeding date, and the next succeeding date down to the last. There are a few exceptions to that, but generally speaking, they follow a chronological pattern. I don't even know if I'll point out the irregularities in that as we go through. It seems like Ezekiel has arranged some things according to subject matter rather than chronology.

   Now, let's get a little bit of the picture here. I mentioned that the house of Judah was in the process of going into captivity. And I say in the process because 8 years, 14 years or whatever it was before there was the first deportation and there are various deportations down to about 585. Over about a nineteen-year period. So that is the time mostly. When Ezekiel prophecied. Now, he prophesied a little beyond that time, a few years beyond that time, but not a a long time beyond that.

   But the house of Israel had gone into captivity about 721. Now we sometimes say 718 and I don't know that it matters very much. That's only 3 years difference, and, and we're talking about the events on almost 2700 years ago, and I don't know they need to quibble about whether 721 or 718. But if we use the year 721 as the time of Israel's captivity and the beginning of this prophecy in 591, it was 130 years previous to the beginning of this book that Israel had gone into captivity, the house of Israel.

   Now you all know that the house of Jacob, or the children of Jacob, which became a nation in Egypt, went into the wilderness, went into the promised land, later, centuries later, were divided during the time of Rehoboam and Jeroboam and became two separate nations. They were two separate people. They have different national boundaries. They have different tribes. They, uh, had a different government, different laws, a different priesthood, almost a different everything except they all descended from Jacob and from his family.

   When people, scholars and others, theologians, the people who study the Bible, read the book of Ezekiel today, they think that the house of Jacob or the house of Israel or the house of Judah is all one and the same people. It is talking about the Jews and of everything in the book of Ezekiel and other places, for that matter. Whether it's talking about the house of Israel or the house of Judah's talking about the same people.

   Now, I presume that all of us realize differently. We've read Mr. Armstrong's booklet on The United States and British Commonwealth and Prophecy. If you haven't, uh, you should read that particular booklet. But we have believed and taught since when about, I guess Mr. Armstrong first started, uh, teaching this in when? 19...29, wasn't it 1929, I think Mr. Woody mentioned that the other day, seems to me 1929 when Mr. Armstrong first came to understand the identity of the United States and Great Britain and that the United States is Manasseh has descended from Manasseh, the tribe of Manasseh, and Great Britain has descended from the tribe of Ephraim. In other words, the sons of Joseph, who were the sons, who was the son rather of Jacob.

   Well, now some years ago, I think it was about 1974, 1975, I had a sermon in Dallas, Texas. And I went through the book of Ezekiel just skimming the high points somewhat like I'll be doing this evening. And I emphasized several times this point about the fact that we have descended from ancient Israel and that many of the prophecies in the book of Ezekiel relate to us, and there are the other Israelite nations as contrasted and as separate from the Jews or the house of Judah.

   Immediately after the sermon, the young man came up to me that I recognized, at least by face, I didn't remember his name, I don't think, but he had lived here at Big Sandy for a couple of years and now he had moved to Dallas. And he was very upset with me. And he couldn't understand why we were getting back to all of this dogmatism. They said, "Well, now the church used to be very dogmatic, and we got away from that and now you're getting back to this." He says, "I studied into this Israel thing." He says, "I've read Mr. Armstrong's book," he says, "I've read history," and he says, "I've proved without any shadow of a doubt that those prophecies relating to Israel, the house of Israel, refer to the modern-day state of Israel."

   Well, that just about floored me, just about appalled me. And I don't know how you can jam all of these prophecies, all of these things about the house of Israel and say that's talking about the Jews over in Palestine. It obviously could not fit there. And if you just read carefully through the book, you'll see that it is so much more than that, and they could not under any stretch of the imagination be what is referred to here as the house of Israel.

   No, apparently from this, the way this man thinks of this and the way that many others do, that God had forgotten. By the time of Ezekiel, that a century and a third before that time, the nation of Israel had gone into captivity. And God had forgotten that those nations had divided about 970 B.C. That God had forgotten by the time of Ezekiel that they had their two capitals, that God had forgotten by the time of Ezekiel that there were 2 national boundaries that they were different tribes. And that they were sometimes even according to scriptures fighting with each other. The Jews, the house of Judah, fighting against the house of Israel. So apparently he thought that God had forgotten all of that.

   So the first thing I want to read in the book of Ezekiel is Chapter 37. I said we're just going to pass over quickly, but I forgot about this. Hope you don't mind, but I'm not going to read the part now that I'm going to read tomorrow. Chapter 37, starting with verse 15 (Ezekiel 37:15). And this is one of those sections to start out, as I just read to you a little while ago. "The word of the Eternal came to me." This is not the beginning of the prophecy. The beginning of the prophecy starts back several chapters. Maybe you'd like to look back here to, uh, chapter 33 verse 21 (Ezekiel 33:21). "In the 12th year of our exile, the 10th month" and so on, that is the beginning of this specific prophecy. Then chapter 34 verse 1 (Ezekiel 34:1), "the word of the Eternal came unto me." Chapter 35 verse 1 (Ezekiel 35:1), "the word of the Eternal came unto me." And now chapter 36, verse 16 (Ezekiel 36:16), "the word of the Eternal came unto me." On down to verse 15 of chapter 37 (Ezekiel 37:15).

   "The word of the Eternal came to me, Son of man, take a stick and write on it, 'For Judah and the children of Israel associated with him.'" Now, what he is saying is that the Jews, the tribe of Judah had associated with them and people who were considered as Jews, some of the children of Israel from other tribes. And if we look through the Bible history, we'll see that specifically a part, maybe all the tribe of Simeon might have been with them, a lot of the tribe of Levi, and also the tribe of Benjamin. More often we think of the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. But probably some of the others were mixed in there and then maybe just a scattering a few of the other Israelites besides that.

   So he's saying now for Judah and the children of Israel associated with him, "then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph." Now Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, and if you read back in the book of Genesis, you'll find that he received a double portion, one portion above his brethren, so that his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, became tribes in their own right. "For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim," not the, uh, uh, younger brethren, or brother rather who became greater, "and all the house of Israel associated with him."

   And so you see with Joseph, who was one of the 2 of the 10 tribes rather, there were 8 other tribes and they were all, you see, the house of Israel. "And join them together into one stick." So he says, now you write the names, the name of Jew or Judah on one stick. You write the name of Joseph or Israel on the other stick. And then you join them together into one stick. So now you just have one stick and it has on one end, the name of Judah and on the other end, the name of Joseph or Israel.

   "And when your people say to you, 'Will you not show up what you mean by these?' Say to them, 'Thus says the Eternal God, behold, I'm about to take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will join with it the stick of Judah and what will make them one stick.'"

   Now I haven't time to read all of this. But let's take it up in verse 21 (Ezekiel 37:21). "Then say to them, 'Thus says the Eternal God, behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone and will gather them from all sides and bring them to their own land,'" back to the land of Palestine, "in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all."

   Now, as you look over in Israel now, there's no one king. They don't have a king. They have the president, the prime minister, and a parliament. But, there's not a king over them. "And they shall no longer or be no longer two nations and no longer divided into two kingdoms."

   Now, God inspired this. Verse 15 says the word of the Eternal says this. And all, uh, Ezekiel did was to write it down. Then he mentions that they're not going to continue in their sins, verse 23. And then in verse 24, noticed this (Ezekiel 37:24). "My servant, David shall be king over them." That's who the king is that he mentions in verse 22.

   Now David isn't alive today. He's been dead since, uh, what, almost 1000 B.C. It's almost 3000 years ago that he died and he hasn't been alive since that time. When is it that God is going to raise up David? At the first resurrection, at the last trump, at the return of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the millennium. That's when David is going to be king, and when that happens, God is once again going to put those two nations which have been separated since about 970 B.C. What's that? About 28, 2900 years ago that have passed here. And finally they're going to be one nation again.

   Let's read that again, verse 24. "My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd," and they're going to obey me, as he goes on to say, David is going to be their prince forever. Verse 26 (Ezekiel 37:26), he says, "I'm going to make a covenant of peace with them." And we read another book in the book of Daniel how that Christ is going to confirm the covenant with Israel for 1 week. He's already done for a half week. He's going to finish it during this time. Then he's going to set his sanctuary among them, which you'll find starting in chapter 40 and verse 28 (Ezekiel 40:28). "Then the nations will know that I, the Eternal, sanctify or set apart Israel when my sanctuary is in the midst of them forever."

   Now, the reason why I have gone over this particular section at this particular time is to point out that God remembered. Most people don't, but God remembers that they were two people, 2 geographic locations, 2 capitals, different tribes, different kings, different dynasties of kings and so on. Now God knew that. And knew that it was going to be that way right up until the very end. A lot of people don't know that, but if you're going to understand anything about the Book of Ezekiel, you have to understand that. And so I've mentioned it right at the beginning.

   So the house of Israel and the house of Judah were two separate kingdoms, and they are to this day. They're separate peoples. Actually, now many nations were at one time they were one nation, and two nations, and then the 10 tribes went their own way and you know they've become additional countries and additional nations. So the house of Israel and the house of Judah are to become one nation again under a resurrected David at the beginning of the 1000 years.

   But now this book was written during the time of Judah's fall, not Israel's fall. And yet strangely, and this is something that possibly you do not realize that the House of Judah is addressed or mentioned only about 6 times in this book. Now, I looked this up in the Strong complete concordance. Excuse me, not Strong. Uh, it's my traveling concordance, and when I'm traveling, uh, flying on airplanes, I don't like to take Strong's with me. Oh yeah, I, I guess you can understand why. Uh, because it's big and heavy.

   Well, now, Cruden's complete concordance sadly is not a complete concordance, I wish it were, but it isn't. But it's small, you know, I have one here that's only less than a half inch thick. Anyway, I, I looked through there and I could only find 6 places where the house of Judah was addressed or mentioned. Then I found that there were almost 70 places where the house of Israel was mentioned. And one for the house of Jacob. And so I went through and I marked all 70 of those and then as I read through the book, I found that there were still some more of them. So I don't know exactly how many there are. Uh, maybe sometime I can get the other concordance and, and see exactly, but at least based on the Cruden's concordance, there are 7 times. Excuse me, 10 times more references to the house of Israel than the house of Judah in this book.

   And yet you see Israel's gone into captivity 130 years earlier. I think from that it ought to be very obvious that the emphasis is overwhelmingly on the house of Israel, rather than on the house of Judah. But the things that were happening to Judah were events that were referred to from time to time and also then were used as types and as references to what's going to happen to Israel.

   All right, now I'd like to go to the beginning of the book. Um, of course I'm just going to have to cover the high points as I mentioned. And I want to try to get the setting so that maybe tomorrow it will be a little more meaningful to you when we get into the first part of chapter 37 and the things that lead up to it.

   All right, we come to chapter one. We have the date of that particular prophecy, which was as I had already mentioned to you about, uh, what was it? 5...591, I think it was. 591 B.C. And at this particular time, Ezekiel and his former king, King Jehoiachin had been in captivity in Babylon for 5 years. This is the 5th year now of the exile of King Jehoiachin and also Ezekiel and others.

   And for the most part of this first chapter, excluding this just a very brief introduction, we find described, the cherubim. Or or living creatures and it describes them in great detail. And when you read and, uh, see the detail here and you try to figure out what was Ezekiel saying there, sometimes it's a little bit hard to understand what he means.

   Now, if you were there, I'm sure that you would have a lot more trouble than Ezekiel to try to describe these fabulous creatures. And you would think, well, now it looks like this in one thing, you know, one looks like an ox, something looks like a, uh, a man and something else looked like an eagle and so on and so forth. He tried to describe things as best he can and even after he does it, since we've never seen anything like that, it's pretty hard to understand. And the same way with the wheels that start out about verse 15.

   Now, let me say this. But even though you may have a little difficulty in understanding exactly what he's describing, and you can picture it perfectly in your, in your mind, which of course you can. If you see one of these, you know, if you see these living creatures and you see these wheels and you see the things that's described here, you'll say, "Well, now that's exactly what Ezekiel was talking about." You know, you'll know that that's what he was talking about. So when you get to see one, then you'll know, well, here's the real thing. Now I know what, what he was talking about and I can understand why he had such difficulty in putting in English. Of course, he didn't put it in English, he put it in, in Hebrew, and I guess we'd be worse off if it was in Hebrew.

   So he describes this. And what he's describing are these living creatures, and over above them, there is a firmament, or we might call it an expanse, which begins to be described in about, uh, verse 22. And then above that firmament or that expanse or sort of a platform like thing, but apparently looks like the sky or the firmament or the expanse.

   Let's pick it up in verse 26 (Ezekiel 1:26) "and above the firmament over their heads, there was a likeness of a throne." Now we know what a throne is, maybe we wouldn't know what this would look like, but you know, it's some sort of a seat. And, uh, it describes that a little bit and then "seated above the likeness of the throne was the likeness of it were a human form." And then he describes that human form. You can compare this with the 10th chapter, you can also compare it with the first chapter of Revelation, with describing Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament, the Yahweh of the Old Testament.

   Then notice here in the middle of verse 28 (Ezekiel 1:28). "Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Eternal" or of Yahweh. So what he is describing here is Jesus Christ, who was also the God of the Old Testament, known in the Old Testament times as Yahweh. That's what he sees here. He's seated on a throne over an expanse, which is over these living creatures, these fabulous living creatures, cherubim. And this is what we might call a portable throne.

   Now the Jews have a word for it, uh, in the Hebrew, which is not, I guess, in, in this particular context, but they call it the Merkaba, Merkaba, M E R K A B A. You might say it's the divine throne. Or the throne of Jesus Christ. Now, the throne of the Father is described elsewhere, and there you'll find that the seraphim are related to that particular throne. Here the cherubim are related to that. And so we see this fabulous throne over these creatures such as we do not see on the earth that can move instantly from place to place, from direction to direction without even having to turn.

   And now he, this is speaking of Christ, the Yahweh, he said certain things here. He says that "I'm sending you to the people of Israel." Now the people of Israel, that's in verse 3, include all 12 tribes. So he wasn't sent alone to the house of Israel, which was 10 tribes, or to the house of Judah, 2 tribes, but to all of them. He calls them a nation of rebels. By the way, I'm reading the revised standard version. Verse 4, he calls them impudent and stubborn. And continues to mention them as being rebellious, then starting about in verse 8.

   He is told now to take a scroll of which dire events are mentioned and he says to eat them. And he goes on to show that it's gonna be sweet as honey, but it's going to taste bitter. Apparently, as you'll find a similar thing happening to the apostle John in Revelation 10 verse 9 to 11, but apparently it's just saying that you ingest or take in these words that I'm going to give you, you go tell them to the people of Israel and their bitter words, you might say. They may seem good to start with, but they're going to be very bad.

   Then in verse one, notice of chapter 3 (Ezekiel 3:1), he says, "go speak to the house of Israel." Now here was, uh, uh, Ezekiel in captivity. He couldn't come and go as he wanted, or at least apparently he couldn't because he was in captivity in slavery. And there's no record in this book that he ever went to the house of Israel.

   Now the house of Israel, as I said, had gone into captivity 130 years before this time. They had been taken up north of here by some little distance by the Assyrians, up near the Caspian Sea. And maybe some of them were still there, maybe some of them were gone. Uh, I don't know. The histories of that, of the events are rather sparse. Uh, so we don't know necessarily know the specifics of that, but probably some of them were still to the north, maybe some of them were gone. But Ezekiel couldn't go there, you know, it was many, many, many days' journey to go there. And there's no record that he ever went to them.

   Now, some of the elders of Israel came to the house of Israel, came to him on occasion, and he spoke to the elders on some occasions and also to the elders of the house of Judah. Then in verse 4, again, he mentions "go to the house of Israel." Verse 5 "to the house of Israel," verse 7 "to the house of Israel." And twice in verse 7, he mentions here "to the house of Israel."

   Now did God know who the house of Israel was? Of course he did, and Ezekiel knew who the house of Israel was. There's just a lot of people today who don't know who the house of Israel was.

   Now verse 10. "Moreover, he said to me, 'Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart and hear with your ears, and go get you to the exiles, to your people and say to them,'" so on and so forth. But as I said, we have no record that he ever was able to do that. That's the prophecy for today. So that that same message that God gave Ezekiel could be written in the Bible and then could be preached in modern times to the descendants. Because really a lot of those things that were happening back then were dual as far as the prophecy is concerned and the important messages for our time, more importantly than it was at that time.

   And after he'd seen this vision, at the end of verse 15 (Ezekiel 3:15), he says, "I sat there overwhelmed among them 7 days." After seeing this fabulous vision, he just sat, I guess, overwhelmed, probably couldn't even talk for about 7 days. Then at the end of 7 days, "the word of the Eternal came to me," and then he says, "I've made you a watchman." Now this was repeated several times in the book, uh, 3 that I think of.

   Then starting in verse 22, we find that he again sees this vision of the Eternal, uh, it mentions in verse 23 in the middle of the verse, "lo, the glory of the Eternal stood there like the glory which I've seen by the river Chebar." This is now out in the plain rather than by the river or I guess we would call it the canal, the, uh, irrigation canal Chebar.

[Tape seems spliced here.]

   I suppose we can speculate a little bit about how difficult that must have been. If, if you lay on your side, you know, for a few minutes or an hour or two at nighttime, you might become rather tired of laying on that one side. Imagine laying on one side without interruption for 390 days. That's well over a year's time. Now that you mentioned this see that he is portraying. And at the end of verse 3, he says "this is a sign for the house of Israel." He mentions it again in verse 4. And verse 5. The house of Israel, 390 day period and what he is portraying here is a siege to come on Israel.

   Now Israel is in captivity. There is no historical record that from that day till now there has ever been a siege of Israel, even if you think they're the Jews or no matter I guess about who you might think they are, that there's been a 390 day siege. This is a prophecy for our time.

   Then he mentions the house of Judah in verse 6, and he used to lay on the other side for 40 days. And showing that the house of Judah, the Jews are going to be besieged for 40 days. Now as he goes on in chapter 5 to describe this in further detail, he mentions the various thirds. A third you mentioned in verse 2 are going to be burned in the fire of the city. A third are going to be killed by warfare or by the sword, and the third part is going to be scattered to the wind, going into captivity, and then just a few of those are going to survive. And from Isaiah 6:13 and Amos 5:13, we see that apparently only 10% of the original figures are going to survive the events that are here pictured.

   Let's pick it up just a little bit here in verse 4, "and of these again, you shall take some and cast them into the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come forth into the all the house of Israel." You see, all the house of Israel, all 10 tribes. And so what was happening here in symbolism, you might say, which was the siege of Jerusalem was going to represent what was going to happen to the house of Israel.

   Verse 5, "thus says the Eternal God, this is Jerusalem. I have kept her in the center of the nations" and so on. Uh, it seems to me what he's saying is but Jerusalem represents, because it anciently was the capital of both Israel and Judah, does represent the house of Israel and the house of Judah, at least in certain senses.

   Now let's come on a little bit further. And come to verse 9 chapter 5, "and because of all your abominations, I will do with you," I want you to notice this very, very carefully because it's important, "and I will do with you what I have never yet done." Now, this is almost 590 B.C. With what I'm talking to you about, I have never done in the past. "And the like of which I will never do again."

   What is he talking about? He's talking about a time of trouble that's going to come on Israel and Judah, such as never was in the past, never will be in the future. Now there's only one time in history that that could happen. It hasn't happened yet. You'll read about that and several other scriptures. If you want to write them down quickly. Jeremiah 30:7 is one. Jeremiah 30:7. Daniel 12:1 is another. Joel 2:2 is another. Mark 13:19, Mark 13:19, and Matthew 24:21. Now the one Matthew 24:21 might be a little more familiar to you. So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, there's 6 places that specifically refer to this kind of trouble such as never was before and never indeed shall be.

   You see, this didn't happen 600 years B.C. It hasn't happened yet, but it will happen very shortly in the future. So we can see that the prophecies here weren't relating back to that time. The things that happened then were just sort of a type or a forerunner in the dual sense of what's going to happen in the end time.

   Then in verse 12 he mentions about the thirds again. And, uh, let's come to chapter 6. "The word of the Eternal came to me, 'Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel.'" Now here again is the beginning or a subdivision we might say, of this first major prophecy. Now he describes the physical land of Israel and how the cities are going to become waste. And yet when you go back and read the descriptions that, uh, the things that happened in that time, and as far as I can find out, the cities were never destroyed. They were partially destroyed, but they were not totally destroyed. So this is talking about a later time, which I just have a time, uh, to read in any detail.

   The House of Israel is mentioned again in verse 11. And in chapter 7, "the word of the Eternal came to me," so another subdivision of this particular, uh, section. "An end to the land of Israel," he says. Verse 5 "disaster after disaster." Notice verse 14, "They have blown the trumpet," which of course is the alarm of war "and made ready, but none goes to battle." And this of course is telling about the time that is leading up to the time of great trouble, verse 9 of chapter 5. But when the Israelite nations, the house of Israel is told the war has come and they blow the trumpet to say to go to war, nobody's going to go to war. Uh, you can look around today and you can see several possibilities of why that might happen, and I will take time to comment about those now.

   You can also see in this chapter a possible intimation of, uh, atomic warfare causing the baldness. Then in verse 23, he talked about the land how "full of bloody crime." And also "the city is full of violence." In verse 26, it mentions "disaster upon disaster, rumor follows rumor." I guess a lot of the rumor mongers that have been very busy rumoring about God's people, they're going to be rumoring about other events some of these days. "The law perishes from the priests and counsel from the elders." There's more about that later, but the priests who should preach the law have gone from that, and they're not preaching the law today. They detest the law. They speak against the law today.

   Alright, now that's the end of this first prophecy. The first 7 chapters. And so let me just very quickly summarize. We saw one section about the throne of God, then about the house of Israel, how that they are rebellious and stubborn. Ezekiel was set to be a lot a watchman, which is surely a type of one in the end time. He mentions about the siege of 390 and 40 days. And the Jerusalem was a type of Judah and Israel. Then the 3 thirds punishment, pestilence, war, and captivity. And how that God was going to ultimately bring destruction because of their idolatry and their sins.

   Now, as we go through these, if we have time, and I don't know if I'll have time to get to all of these various sections, but you'll find that in many of these, especially in relation to Israel, the same sort of thing is repeated over and over and over again. You might say the, the nation is sinned, therefore punishment comes, which includes captivity. Then the people repent. And they are restored. And this is repeated that that theme is sort of repeated, not in its entirety, but sometimes in its entirety through all of these various prophecies.

   Now we come to the second prophecy. This was given now in 590, approximately B.C. The 6th year, the 6 months, and so on. The other was the 5th year. Now he says that "I sat in my house." I have to break into the thought here in some places and not read the whole sentence or the whole verse. He said, "I sat in my house with the elders of Judah." Now, he's talking about the elders of Judah, not the house of Judah, but elders from the house of Judah.

   And he describes various abominations that he sees, apparently envisioned in Jerusalem. But in verse 6, he says unto me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations of the house of Israel are committing." Now he's talking to the elders of Judah. He sees things that are apparently are taking place in Jerusalem, which was a part of Judah, not yet taken captive, and he says that the house of Israel are committing these sins. So apparently then, and also I think that this is dual speaking of our time, that the same sins were committed by Israel as were committed by Judah. He mentions the various idols of the house of Israel, skipping on a few verses.

   Then in verse 12, then he said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing?" So now the house of Israel, the elders of the house of Israel are doing similar things, and he talks about every man in his room of pictures. I don't know what kind of pictures are described here or that he's talking about, um, when you look around the land today, you see that some people have their rooms of pictures, pornographic pictures. They're watching their television sets or so on and so forth and straying far from God and putting their hearts and their thoughts on wrong things. I don't mean the television is wrong, but maybe the wrong use of it is.

   He says they say rather, "for they say the Eternal does not see us, the Eternal has forsaken the land," and that's sort of the attitude that a lot of people have today too, isn't it, because we have all of these same sins, the same problems. People think that God's in his heaven and all is right with the world. You know, God's in his heaven as long as he keeps his nose out of our business, everything will be all right. But God knows what's going on and, uh, God will intervene at the proper time.

   All right, let's come on a little bit further. In verse 17, we notice the house of Judah is mentioned. He talks about violence and as a result of that, then God is not going to spare, but he is going to punish. And then he describes some of that punishment, I think here in an allegory or a symbol with executioners coming into the city of Jerusalem. Uh, and, uh, let's note here in verse 4, the Eternal said to this man with the writing case and the inkhorn, "go through the city, through Jerusalem," which actually was the capital of both Israel and Judah, and I think in a sense typifies both houses. "And put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it."

   So he says, go through the city, or you might say go through Israel and Judah. And mark all of those that are sighing and groaning over the abomination. Now, most people are not concerned about the abominations. They don't even know what abominations are. Because they don't know God's word. They don't know what is an abomination to God. They may even know things that they dislike or that they think are abominable, but they may or may not be the things that God thinks are abominable. But those who know what is abominable to God and those who are concerned, that are upset about it, that are as it says here sighing and groaning that they're just wishing for God's kingdom to come because of all the wickedness that they see around them. And those are marked and they are protected and not killed in the slaughter that follows here.

   Now notice verse 9, he said to me, "the guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great," and that's why these things of course are coming on the land. So what he is describing here in Jerusalem is going to come to Israel, the house of Israel and the house of Judah, the 10 tribes and the 2 tribes.

   Then in chapter 10, we find again the Merkaba, as I told you it was called, described. And chapter 11. Let's pick it up here about verse 14. Maybe I should also mention that, uh, God's spirit lifted him up and took him to Jerusalem. And so what he sees here is taking place in Jerusalem just as some of the other places had taken place in Jerusalem.

   "And the word of the Eternal came unto me, 'Son of man, your brethren, even your brethren, your fellow exiles, even the whole house of Israel, all of them are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said they are have gone far from the eternal of this land. To us, this land is given for a possession.'"

   So what he's saying here is that the people who were left in Jerusalem are saying, "We know the Israelites have been taken into captivity. Many of our Jewish brethren have been taken into captivity, and here we are all left. And therefore those of us who are left, God has given us this land." The land of Israel, the land of Palestine. Even though God had removed the others far among the nations as he goes on, and "I've scattered them. And I've given them a sanctuary for a little while" and so on, "but I'm going to gather them," he says.

   And he says, let's pick it up in verse 17. "Therefore, save us as the Eternal God, I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And when they come, they will remove from, uh, from it all its detestable things and all its abomination."

   Now let's note that verse 19 is rather important. "And I will give them," that is when I bring the people that have been scattered to the nations, when I bring them back to my land, "I will give them one heart. And put a new spirit within them." And what will that spirit be, not the spirit of Satan, the devil. It'll be the Holy Spirit. "And I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes, keep my ordinances, and obey them, and they shall be my people and I will be their God."

   Now what he is describing here is the events that are taking place during the millennium when God is going to restore Israel and Judah back to their land and they're going to become converted. And as it mentions over in Romans, you know, that all Israel shall be saved. That's what it's describing here in verse 19.

   Now we have to hurry along. In chapter 19, we see sort of an analogy mentioned here, or maybe that's not the right word. Anyway, uh, Ezekiel goes through the routine of an exile. And how an exile has to leave his home and is taken into captivity. And it concerns the prince in Jerusalem that says in verse 10. And also, of course, to the house of Israel, verse 8 mentions that. And so what he was going through here represented what was going to happen to the king at that particular time who was King Zedekiah and how that he was going to go into captivity. But it really is referring to something far more than that because it relates to the whole house of Israel as well, and that's just sort of the type of what was going to happen to all of the Israelites.

   Now let's see. A little bit later in the chapter, we see that some were saying that all these visions of God, all of these prophecies, they never come to pass. Well, that's what some people were saying with us here a few years ago, you know, that the prophecies aren't coming to pass, but he says now I'm not going to delay, things are going to come to pass from now on.

   Chapter 13. "The word of the Eternal came to me." Now here is another section to this major second prophecy. And he talks here about the day of the Lord and what's going to happen to the prophets or the, uh, religious leaders. I haven't time to to go through this, but they have misled the people saying that good things were going to come, and they're going to have peace when that was not what was going to happen. Now, he talks here not only about the male prophets, but the female prophets. So we're speaking here about men ministers or preachers and also women preachers.

   Verse 1 of chapter 14. "Then came certain of the elders of Israel to me." Uh, here we see the elders of Israel now come. Before we've seen the elders of Judah, now the elders of Israel come, they sat before him. And God says, "Well, now these men have their idols. And they have not put away their idols." He mentions the house of Israel. And let's skip over. Verse 7 mentions the house of Israel. He says that the time is going to come when they're no longer going to go astray from me, but they're going to of course return to me.

   And then he mentions how that, uh, during the time of great trouble that's coming, that even if Noah, Daniel, or Job were in that particular place that they would only save their own lives and not even their own children, their sons and daughters, as he mentions two or three places here, and I think that he's talking here now about adult children. He's not talking about minor children, surely. I know that people have asked that from time to time, you know, what about our children when the church is protected. Uh, certainly God is not going to leave the minor children behind unless of course those minor children are rebellious and will not obey their parents, then it might be a different matter. But obedient children, I think that of a minor age that this is not what he is referring to here. Now at one time, you know, Noah, because of his righteousness, was able to deliver his adult children who were married, but it wouldn't happen that way again, see.

   Then in chapter 15, we find Jerusalem described as a useless vine. I'll just skip over that particular chapter.

   Chapter 16. "The word of the eternal came again." And he says now to let Jerusalem know her abominations. Now this is a rather familiar chapter surely to you because it's talking about Jerusalem. And sometimes we refer to this as Israel. It doesn't say specifically Israel, except maybe in type, but it's talking about Jerusalem, the city. And maybe we should read just a little bit of this.

   "Son of man make known to Jerusalem her abomination. Thus says the Eternal God to Jerusalem, 'your origin and your birth are the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.'" Now, if you're thinking about the nation speaking nationally of Israel, uh, they did not descend from the Canaanites or from the Amorites or the Hittites, but the city of Jerusalem, anciently, you see, did or was occupied by some of those people. And so it's talking about the city primarily, which in a sense is a type of the nation.

   I haven't time to describe all of this, but he describes how that Jerusalem was befriended by God and protected by God, and when it came time for marriage, was married to God and how that God blessed her with all good physical things and then described how that she changed the good things that God had given her into things to worship and to use for illicit uses. So I haven't time to go through this either, but, uh, let's skip down now.

   He mentioned, by the way, Sodom and Samaria, neighboring cities of ancient Jerusalem, and how that now Jerusalem had been even worse than Sodom and worse than Samaria. And if you wondered what the sin was in the land of Sodom, there's a little bit about that in verse 49. And verse 50. I won't take time to read that here, but it adds a little bit to the account over in the book of Genesis.

   Now let's come down to verse 53. "I will restore their fortune." Now he's talking about the three cities Jerusalem, Sodom, and Samaria. Or at least he ultimately will speak of all three. "I will restore their fortunes. Both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters," I guess that would be the maybe surrounding cities of ancient Sodom, which of course was anciently in the time of Abraham destroyed, and I don't even know if they know exactly for sure even yet where the ancient city of Sodom was. "And the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters. And I will restore your own fortunes, Jerusalem, in the midst of them that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done becoming, becoming a consolation to them. As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters," now notice that "they shall return to their former estate. And Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, and you and your daughters shall return to your former estate."

   What is he talking about here? What he is talking about really is the second resurrection. He's talking about the Great White Throne judgment period and we're going to be talking more about tomorrow. I haven't tried to elaborate very much on that, but when ancient Sodom and all those people who died in that holocaust are going to be resurrected. And those people then will return to their former estate. And then of course they are going to come to learn God's ways as you'll see if you read on a little bit further here.

   Well, let's note just a part of it. Verse 62, "I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I'm the Eternal." And now at the end of verse 63, "when I forgive you, all that you have done, says the Eternal God."

   Then there is an allegory here of the house of Israel, and this is covered in the booklet, the United States and British Commonwealth and prophecy, so I'll skip over it. Starting in verse 11, we find here some comments about the king of Babylon coming against Jerusalem and his relationship here with the king first Jehoiachin, and also Mattaniah who was named Zedekiah.

   Uh, chapter 18, just point out one thing, "the soul that sins it shall die." This is repeated twice and it's just saying that people are not going to suffer for the sins of their parents, they're going to suffer for their own sins. Verse 25 people are saying that God isn't fair. But God, of course, is fair.

   Verse 30. "Therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel," and this is mentioned several times in this chapter house of Israel. "Everyone, according to his ways as the Eternal God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit," and of course that's what's going to happen in the millennium and also the Great White Throne period.

   Then there's a Lamentation chapter 19 over the princes or the kings of Israel and, uh, also you might say in the sense of Judah as well. Now that chapter of course ends this particular second prophecy.

   It's almost time to quit. We just have a few more minutes, so I'll have to hurry a little bit faster.

   The third prophecy starting in chapter 20 came about 589. Again, the elders of Israel are involved, verse 1 and verse 2. And in verse 5 it mentions the house of Jacob, which includes all 12 tribes. Now this chapter is a marvelous chapter. I wish I had time to go through it very carefully word for word. In fact, I have done just that in sermons in the past, but it, it very briefly describes from God's point of view, the history of Israel and Judah and how God dealt with them, how he gave them his laws, how he gave them his holy days, and how he gave them his Sabbath, and then they turned from them and then what's going to happen.

   And then when you come down to verse 40, you'll find out they have gone into captivity. Maybe I should go verse 37. He said, "I will make you pass under the rod and let you go in by number." What he is saying is what I've already referred to that you're all going to pass through the rod in every 10th one's mine because that's what happened year by year when they separated tithes of their herd and their flock. And, uh, so he's just saying that only 10% of you are going to survive these things.

   The verse 40, "for on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel says the Eternal God, there all the house of Israel, all of them shall serve me in the land. There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and your offerings" and so on. Verse 42, "and you shall know that I am the Eternal." Now that last statement is repeated many times in this book and is a major theme of this book that when these things come to pass, and people will know who the true God is. They're going to loathe themselves for their sins at the end of verse 43. And, uh, so on.

   So here we find again, uh, not only horrible things going to happen, but it ends up with 1000 years as we find it described over in Revelation when Israel is going to serve God and know God's ways.

   Chapter 21. "The word of the Eternal came to me" again, another prophecy in this, this one. Uh, another one in in verse 18. Uh, chapter 20, let's 22 rather, let's skip over some of this. Several places here we find the separate sections, "the word of the Eternal came" and says various things. Um, we have the parable, I guess you might call it, of Oholah and Oholibah, one representing Judah, the tribe, excuse me, the house of Judah and the other the house of Israel. And then chapter 23 in that particular prophecy.

   Chapter 24 starts the fourth prophecy. On that particular day that is mentioned here in 587, the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem. And there is an allegory that's mentioned here again. A personal note here in verse 15, 16 to 18.

   And then in chapter 25, he tells what's going to happen to the Ammonites. Because of what they do to the house of Judah. Now, in this chapter, this is a rather unique chapter in that the house of Judah is referred to here to here several times. It's mentioned in let's see, verse 3. Verse 8. And verse 12, 3 times, the house of Judah. Now what we've been reading about the house of Israel, now, the house of Judah is emphasized, and they, of course, are in the land of Israel. You see the land of Israel, the ancient land of Palestine, the Jews lived there at this particular time.

   And, uh, he now is telling first the Ammonites, then in verse 8 the Moabites, then in verse 12, the Edomites, and in verse 15, the Philistines, what's gonna happen to them for what they do to the house of Judah or the Jews. In other words, he's describing things in our time that these other nations round about, uh, the Jews, what they're going to do to the Jews and then as a result of that, God is going to punish each of these nations. That's the end of that prophecy.

   Now chapter 26, we have another one. And there's a long section here, and I will take time, I don't think even to, to, uh, look here through the Bible, but just let me get some of my notes here. We come to chapter 26. All right, Chapter 26, verse 1 through chapter 28, verse 26 refers to Tyre. And there's a duality there. There is also a very important passage relating to Satan, who is behind the whole system of Tyre. And just as Tyre was an ancient city, an ancient city-state, there is a modern counterpart.

   Then the 6th prophecy starting in chapter 29 relates to Egypt. A seventh prophecy starts in chapter 29 verse 17. It also relates to Egypt, and I might say that that particular prophecy, chapter 29 verse 17, is the last prophecy chronologically of the whole book. I will take time to elaborate on that.

   The 8th prophecy starts in chapter 30, verse 20 relates again to Egypt. The 9th one relates to Egypt starting in chapter 31. And the 10th one, chapter 32, verse 1 again relates to Egypt.

   Then in chapter 32, verse 17 through chapter 33 verse 20, it tells about the various Gentile nations and their armies and what ultimately is going to happen to them, and that is that they go down to the nether world to use the revised standard version, uh, definition. Or to Sheol or to the grave. And also it, it concludes with, again, the duty of a watchman.

   And now let's come to chapter 33. Chapter 33. And verse 21. "In the 12th year of our exile, in the 10th month, on the 5th day of the month, the man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, 'The city has fallen.'" So this was a few months, quite a few weeks after Jerusalem had fallen before the word finally got to Ezekiel that the city had fallen. He had received word from God earlier that the siege had started, and now we find that the city has fallen. And that starts the prophecy, the 12th prophecy of this particular book, which covers also the 37th chapters, and that's what I'm going to be covering tomorrow.

   But now let's turn on ahead to chapter 40. Chapter 40 is the last prophecy, the 13th prophecy. And this prophecy takes place about 12 years after the previous prophecy. So there was a long period here of about 12 years that Ezekiel didn't receive any prophecy, or if he did, it's not recorded in, in, in the Bible.

   Now, in this particular prophecy, we'll find described in great detail the physical aspects of the millennial temple and of course the temple that will be, uh, still on earth during the Great White Throne judgment period. So, so it'll last, you see, for well over 1000 years apparently. Not only is the temple described in great detail, even in some cases to describing the hooks or the sacrifices to be hung on, but also the priestly duties or the Levites, the sons of Aaron, or particularly and even of the family of Aaron, subdivided even further to the family of Zadok, of whom, of course, Ezekiel was one. The priestly duties. A section about the river that flows from the temple of God, and it ends by saying "the Lord or the Eternal is there." Oh, I forgot to mention the division of the land. And then the whole book ends.

   Now most of these prophecies that we've gone through very, very quickly, I realized, concern the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And each of these prophecies all, at least those that relate to Israel, not so much those that relate to the Gentile nations, but most of them relate to similar things repeated over and over and over again, as I mentioned, sin, the sin of Israel or of Judah, the punishment, the punishment that automatically is going to come, which ends in captivity and then restoration. So this theme is repeated over and over and over again, it seems like in these particular prophecy.

   Now we've gone over it rather quickly. I've gone a couple of minutes over, but maybe that'll give you sort of a bird's eye view. I hope you're not, uh, your head isn't swimming too much. We're covering all of that in such a short period of time, but that will serve now as maybe a little bit of an introduction to tomorrow's sermon. So good night, have a good night.