A Crash Course Through The Old Testament, Part 12 - EZEKIEL (A Conversation With Luke Taylor)

Nate Vainio: 0:03

This is something to gnaw on a short podcast for the Christian with a short attention span, and we have been going through a crash course through the Old Testament. We have gone from Genesis, then the first section of the Bible, the law. We have gone through the history books, the poetry books Last week or two weeks ago by the time you're listening to this, you will have heard the intro into the prophets, possibly Isaiah, and today we have a guest who we are going to dive into a fun conversation with and I will introduce him here in just a moment. But I wanted to begin just by emphasizing again the gist of what we were wanting to do in this crash course through the Old Testament, that is, to take the edge off of the intimidation factor that some may see the Bible, especially the Old Testament, with regard to its size or what version you listen to or what have you. So I'm hoping today you can just listen into a very fun conversation with a friend of mine Luke and I have met.

Nate Vainio: 1:12

I got a call from Luke and I'm like, hey, another podcaster is asking me questions about stuff. It's been about a year, year and a half ago, and we have. It's just been a, for me at least, I will speak for myself. It's been just a good connection with you regarding podcasting, regarding sharing the Gospel in this format, and so, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to, if you oh, let me back up In the Christmas, in the Christmas episodes I did, I shared a story about a young man who said how dare you challenge my manhood at the what? Six years, seven years, eight years, ten years?

Luke Taylor: 1:55

eight years old.

Nate Vainio: 1:57

And he stepped up and he showed that guy who was boss. By showing him hit, he could in fact drive the family gator. Luke Taylor is with me today. We're here in actually his studio and Luke has the cross references podcast and the tagline. Now I want to hit the tagline on this real quick and we'll move on, but the tagline is taking every or every small piece of the Bible. Every small piece of the Bible makes one big story Story Right, and I love stories. Luke knows that. But as we get to going through a certain book of the Old Testament today the prophets we're going to see how that works out as well. But Luke, tell us real quick about the other podcast that you have going on.

Luke Taylor: 2:40

Yeah, a few months ago I started a second one because I decided I just wasn't busy enough with working on a full-time job and doing a podcast. But I just had this. I kind of wanted to talk about some weird things, because the Bible has a lot of weird things and I'm kind of a weird guy. So I thought let me put all that together, shoe fits, yeah, and I didn't want to alienate the audience on cross references and like just go off into the, you know, into the twilight zone with them. So I started a new one called Weird Stuff in the Bible, and that title just basically tells you what it's all about.

Nate Vainio: 3:13

Alrighty, we may very well get into some of that.

Luke Taylor: 3:16

Oh yeah, ezekiel's a good one for it.

Nate Vainio: 3:18

In the prophets here, but many of you listening in. Today you've heard me make reference to our online store and again I thank you for your support. Thank you for liking, sharing, rating, reviewing and all that fun social media stuff. I've mentioned our online store and I have something here and I'm literally opening up this box for the first time. It's true.

Luke Taylor: 3:44

I just watched you cut the tape.

Nate Vainio: 3:46

Yeah, the last piece of tape. Right, and let's see here, as I'm opening this deal up here, I have a mug and we will post a picture of this. But, luke, my gift to you for being on the show on the podcast. Oh wow, before I hand this to you, I got to look over this and I got to put my mitts over this, because I have not even seen this before.

Nate Vainio: 4:17

But this is a just a little mug Wow, a coffee mug handle on there. Little, on the smaller side, not a big gaudy you know those big gaudy mugs that people have. Oh yeah yeah, this is the perfect size, that's. I've seen this and now I have it in my hands, your hands, and it's smaller than I anticipated, but I like it.

Luke Taylor: 4:41

Well, you know, it's just that they have those itty bitty little thermosteas you can take, and they got the big giant ones that can hold too much, too much coffee. I'll get all jittery. This is the perfect size right here, and they did a great job printing on it too. Yeah, it's all very plain and clear.

Nate Vainio: 4:55

It's got the not on scripture logo on there and maybe we need to rethink putting not on a mug when you're drinking I need a new metaphor to work with here, but anyhow, hey, this is beautiful.

Luke Taylor: 5:08

Thank you for thank you for that gift. I encourage people to go check out the picture if you stick it on Facebook or something and go to the store and and look at all that they got there We'll get a good picture.

Nate Vainio: 5:16

Shoot, the picture will probably be up before the podcast will be, so anyhow, may you enjoy many cups of coffee.

Luke Taylor: 5:23

I'm sure we'll appreciate it, thank you.

Nate Vainio: 5:26

So all righty. So we have been on a crash course through the Old Testament, and we were before we started, we were kind of bemoaning the well, not bemoaning the fact, but just playing with the idea that I intend episodes. I have taken my audience through Genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy, the law. We've gone through the history books of Joshua, judges, ruth, samuel, kings Chronicles, and we've gone through the poetry and wisdom books of Job and Psalms and Proverbs and what have you and I've done that in land speed, record time 10 episodes. You, however, my friend, have a different pace. So, for those of you who don't know Luke and his podcast, cross References, he, how many episodes did you say you've done?

Luke Taylor: 6:25

now, on this, I'm working on my 49th right now for the book of Ezekiel. The book is Ezekiel.

Nate Vainio: 6:30

So so what you're going to witness and listen in on today is the clash of two worlds, of two guys who love the Bible At the same time. They've approached this at this point in time in two very different fashions. One is me doing the 50,000 foot aerial view and Luke doing a step by step methodical study through there, and so we're going to have just kind of a conversation about the book of Ezekiel and I'm just going to kind of quiz Luke on this and just we're just going to kind of work through this for this episode and just see where we end up here. So you ready? Yeah, absolutely 49 episodes.

Luke Taylor: 7:10

And we're up to this, 49th will finish up chapter 28.

Nate Vainio: 7:14

28 and you've got so it. So what it highlights to me is that on the one hand you can kind of glance quickly at the Bible and get a good overview like a topographical map, like I've been doing. Then you can get down in the weeds or not necessarily the weeds, but you can get down boots on the ground and just kind of work through this stuff and it's rich?

Nate Vainio: 7:36

Yeah, absolutely rich. Let me fire a Crazy question at you Outside of the box here a little bit. Why Ezekiel for this amount of time of study?

Luke Taylor: 7:50

Yeah, I picked Ezekiel because one, I love the prophetic books and I don't think they get enough attention Fair enough. Two, you can yeah, you can find a million resources out there on the book of John or the book of Romans. You know a lot of stuff out there. There's a million resources for already you don't see a lot of people doing Ezekiel, yeah, but yeah, a pastor might pick up a book like Matthew and he might preach through 10 verses at a time and spend a few years on that, maybe, and that's great, but no one ever goes back and does that with something like Ezekiel because it takes you a long, long time to do it.

Nate Vainio: 8:24

When I was a kid I had a pastor not my dad, everybody knows my dad's a pastor. But when I was in my younger years we were at a church and the pastor did a Back to Basics series. I think it lasted three years. We always laughed that apparently the basics weren't so basic. You know, it was pretty in-depth but anyhow.

Nate Vainio: 8:44

So with Ezekiel let's start out. So, in the overview of the prophets that I did, I just kind of highlighted a couple of things, just looking at who the author is looking at, what's going on in that time frame, what other authors are out there, what other things are happening historically in that moment? Right, and the big thing with Ezekiel is that all these prophets will have and everybody I read has a different, a little bit of a different take on this, but the phrase I'm going to throw out, the phrase a prophetic voice or prophetic perspective. So, ezekiel, how would you describe his prophetic perspective? I mean, sometimes there's the prophet these being judgment. The judgment is hey, kids, knock it off, you're going to get God's going to take care of you here, right now. Right, then you have, like Isaiah, who's like a messianic prophetic voice in a lot of ways. Then you have more of what you see in Daniel and Ezekiel, which would be more, I'm guessing, is apocalyptic Visions. Yes, yeah, how does that come about for Ezekiel?

Luke Taylor: 9:58

Yeah, again, that's another reason I wanted to do Ezekiel is because if you're just kind of like, read through, you know, go through the Bible and a year plan, all the prophets kind of run together, it's hard to know what distinguishes each one. And that's what I wanted to do is like really figure out what Ezekiel was all about. And so his big thing is sign acts. He does a lot of weird visual demonstrations for the peoples and stuff like that. He'll act out the judgments that are coming and he'll do these things to really get people's attention. So that is one thing that makes him a little bit unique and some of the apocalyptic scenarios that he lays out, you know that's a little bit unique to him. He uses a lot of symbolic language, more so than the other prophets, to make his points. The four wheel drive, the four wheel drive, the four wheel drive, throne.

Nate Vainio: 10:48

Oh, yeah, exactly Exactly.

Luke Taylor: 10:50

That's something you don't find in the other books.

Nate Vainio: 10:52

Yeah. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you'll have to crack the book and figure that one out yourself. So let's back up just a little bit. Time frame what kind of a time frame are we dealing with with Ezekiel?

Luke Taylor: 11:05

Yeah. So Ezekiel comes in there, right where the Babylonian exile and the fall of Jerusalem, when all that is going on, that took a few decades for the whole campaign to get done. It started about 606 BC and it went until 586 BC. So for about a 19 year period, babylon kept coming in and ransacking the place. As far as Israel goes, the first time they came in they carried off just a small handful of Jews. Daniel was part of that group. Then they came through a second time and they took 10,000 Jews. Ezekiel was part of that group.

Luke Taylor: 11:42

So Ezekiel, that's where his book is taking place. He's been carried off to another location. He's been put in exile by these Babylonians. He's over just as one of these captives in another city, probably kind of feeling sorry for himself. The people might think, okay, well, babylon's done. They came, they took some people away, they're going to leave us alone. Now Ezekiel's message is like actually, there's another attack coming. That's the fall of Jerusalem. That was in 586 BC. That is a big turning point of the Old Testament which, as you've been going through your overview of the Old Testament this is something that keeps coming up is the fall of Jerusalem, when Babylon came in and took everything away, and God's judgment finally fell on Jerusalem. Ezekiel takes place right in the midst of all that, okay.

Nate Vainio: 12:32

So one of the things that I have been working on in this has been to and I've really, up to this point, been more laying the foundation than actually doing this. So Ezekiel is written right at the tail end of the history books. So if you're reading through the end of Second Kings and the end of Second Chronicles, this what's going on in Ezekiel is going to line up with the historical accounts in those books as well, right? Do you find personally that when you've studied that you find any value in? As you read through those things, you kind of look and go oh, this is what Ezekiel's dealing with or does that light kind of pop when you read that.

Luke Taylor: 13:15

Well, yeah, I mean that's why I do the show called Cross References, because you know the Bible's full of these connections and so, yeah, you might be reading in Ezekiel and it has you jumping over to kind of what's happening. Jeremiah is in Jerusalem, so he's writing all this from over in Jerusalem saying, hey, the attack is coming here. And Ezekiel's sending these messages from Tel-Abibe. He's saying, hey, the attack is going to be there in Jerusalem. So they're, yeah, these events line up with each other.

Nate Vainio: 13:40

I okay, I'm not going to reveal my age officially here, but I did not realize until recently. Now, and this is the beautiful thing I love about the Bible is that you can read, you can spend years reading the Bible and, for whatever reason, something will hit you now. Oh, absolutely, that you have gone over years ago multiple times and totally missed, and for whatever reason, god brings it to your attention. Now I will talk to my mom and dad on the phone and they're in there. They're in there late and don't want to divulge too much personal information for people who can't defend themselves here. But it's interesting that there are times where I will talk with them where they will say I never saw that, or I just saw this the first time, like I will see something and I'll ask them about it. They'll say I hadn't seen that, but legitimately. At the same time, they'll say hey, I just saw these things.

Nate Vainio: 14:42

And one of the things with Ezekiel that I found really interesting was it's like you have these dueling profits going on in the moment the overlap of Jeremiah and you spend your time in Ezekiel. For me, I've spent a lot of time in Jeremiah just wrapping my head around. There's that's a path that the Lord has walked me through. But it's like you've got these dueling profits. You've got one guy in Jerusalem, you've got another guy in Babylon prophesying about the same circumstances, yep, and it's just a very interesting perspective for me. You know, as I was reading through that I mean Jeremiah spins, jeremiah 20, what? 25 through 29, when they're complaining about the, are we going to be here for a couple of years, right, right, and if I'm not mistaken, that's the same time period that Ezekiel is ministering as well, and so to see that dynamic happening is just. It was interesting to me what was going on there. But anyhow.

Luke Taylor: 15:50

Well, it's something else interesting about those two, and this is just one of my favorite things I found studying Ezekiel. Yeah, king Zedekiah, at that time he had a prophecy from Jeremiah saying you're going to be taken to Babylon, and he had a prophecy from Ezekiel saying you will never see Babylon. And so Zedekiah said well, jeremiah and Ezekiel's prophecies contradict you. Guys can't even keep your stories straight. So he said I want to disregard what you all are saying, but then if you know Zedekiah's story and it's horrifying, but he does get captured by the Babylonians, but he has his eyes put out before he's taken away, and so both of these prophecies come true. He was taken to Babylon, but he never saw it. But he never saw it. Yeah, it's kind of a. It's a little bit dark there, but it is interesting how he rejected the prophecy because it wasn't lining up, and God's word always lines up perfectly.

Nate Vainio: 16:41

It's interesting. It's very interesting how people because that happens all over in the New Testament and I shouldn't say it happens all over, but you will see things like that where you have two prophecies about something and it seems as if one may not line up. But that's incredible. Yeah, I hadn't read that.

Luke Taylor: 16:59

It's one of those things you find whenever you dig in.

Nate Vainio: 17:01

Yeah, that's good. So, as we were kind of prepping for this time together, let's back up a little bit too and talk a little bit about Ezekiel the man. So, jeremiah, you know Isaiah starts out. You know, isaiah son of Amos, I think is his name in the years during the reigns of has this very regal introduction. So you got Isaiah with a regal introduction, I guess you'd call it and I'm kind of shooting from the hip right here. I don't have my notes in front of me on this but then you get to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah starts with kind of this radical call right off the bat hey, I knew you when, before you became, before you came in this world, I knew you. Tell us how Ezekiel starts.

Luke Taylor: 17:52

Yeah, ezekiel has a little bit unique introduction as he starts by talking about his age, that his book starts right after his 30th birthday, and it mentions that he was a Levite. He was supposed to be a priest, because the Levites were always those ones who, basically their whole life, they're like I know what I'm supposed to do, I know what my calling is. God wants me to be a priest. He had me born into the Levites.

Luke Taylor: 18:19

And so you think about Ezekiel, the man he had been training his whole life to become a priest. Your priesthood is supposed to start at your 30th birthday, and yet here, as we come to the start of Ezekiel's story, he's sitting on the side of a hill in Tel-Abibe and he's thinking I'm supposed to have just started my priesthood right now. I've been training for it my whole life, but instead I got kidnapped by these Babylonians. I'm taking hundreds of miles away from home. There's no temple here. Everything that I thought my life was supposed to be about is gone. And so he's sitting on the side of a hill and he's a little bit bitter, but then something pretty glorious happens, is like this portal or something you know appears in front of him and he has a vision of God and see some other pretty wacky things there too. But he gets, and he gets this calling from this visitation from God to become a prophet.

Nate Vainio: 19:15

I think it's. It was interesting when I was reading that the other day, just kind of prepping and what have you, but that whole idea that it was his 30th birthday it was. I think he hit it the nail right on the head. Is that his entire life he had an expectation. He filled out all the little, the little assignments you had in elementary school when I grew up. I'm not the fireman or policeman or you know whatever you know. He's going to be a priest and 30, everything builds to this. And now, not only is he not in Jerusalem, he's nowhere near the temple.

Nate Vainio: 19:57

The temple has been, has been or is in some form of perpetual destruction or degradation of some sort or another. And he's not even in the land of Israel. Crie is in captivity and on the front pages of the book has been open to zuptice that, god, what do you got for me?

Luke Taylor: 20:14

Yeah, I find it really kind of easy to just put myself in his shoes just to try to imagine what he's thinking, because he's probably feeling Maybe he rejected by God, you know, he's probably thinking. He's thinking why me? You know, why was I taken away? I imagine he was probably a pretty good guy, but he's. He's thinking I trained my whole life to do this thing for you, god, and now you've transplanted me over here. I think he trusted God, was in control. But he's like maybe he feels why was I not good enough? Why was I the one of the ones taken away?

Luke Taylor: 20:42

He's thinking the ones back home that are still in Jerusalem, still free, because it hasn't been destroyed yet. He's thinking, oh, they're the lucky ones, I'm the one who's got taken away. And so he, his whole roadmap for his life has just been shredded in front of him. But then God shows up and God actually had a totally different plan. He hadn't forgotten Ezekiel. He just had something totally different. He wanted to do with his life and and come to find out he's actually a lot better off where he was, at this city of Tel-Abeep. Then all those other Jews were back home in Jerusalem because some some really bad stuff was gonna be coming for them.

Nate Vainio: 21:18

Yeah, at One phrase that rolled off my tongue doing a podcast one day on that topic and it it was funny. I don't know if this ever happened to you or something. You're studying something, it's something just kind of rolls off your tongue in conversation or whatever. But the reality of that whole deal was that you were absolutely blessed and honored To be in Babylon. I mean, if you were a Jew, the best place in the world you could be was in Babylon. And every one of them was complaining about it. Yeah, you know, they were bemoaning the whole issue, but your alternatives were to be dead, judged and dead, you know, and and dead by a myriad of bad methodologies, or you could have survived and been left for dead unprotected. Yeah, in the land of Jerusalem and in. Yeah, so he's. But by the same token, he's bemoaning his Situation there and yeah, so pick up there at the 30th birthday.

Nate Vainio: 22:24

Yeah, he has a vision, mm-hmm, and this takes us into now the nature, let's, let's look at this real quick. The nature of his ministry, then, is and, in prophetically speaking, is God speaks to him through vision. I mean he shows him a Lot. Yeah, I mean it's, that's seems like that's the methodology of. I mean like when you look, okay, let's go compare and contrast again real quick. Go back to Isaiah, jeremiah. Let's see Isaiah has that moment in Isaiah six where he's it's very much a visual moment, right, but I think in Jeremiah correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like in Jeremiah, and the better part of Isaiah as well it's it's very verbal mm-hmm, for lack of a better word.

Luke Taylor: 23:18

I suppose, yeah.

Nate Vainio: 23:20

God's because he speaks there. There's a lot of speaking back and forth, right, but Things with Ezekiel are very pictorial, yeah.

Luke Taylor: 23:30

Yeah, and it's nothing else interesting about Ezekiel's call. You know it's similar to Isaiah as he gets a vision of God, he sees God on his throne. I think Isaiah was taken to the throne room and Ezekiel it's more like the throne comes down to him and God gives him this calling and and says I'd like you to be a prophet. Whereas Isaiah was like here I am, send me. You know he's like volunteers jumping up to do it. Ezekiel is very resistant at first. Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. He has. He actually says no the first time. He sits on the side of that hill for another week and just kind of simmers about it Until God comes back and asks him again and then he says he'll do it. But Ezekiel knew that the calling of a prophet was not something that you take lightly and and so was it is.

Nate Vainio: 24:19

Do you think that his resistance to that was more Attitude or respect?

Luke Taylor: 24:25

hmm, there's some of both in there. You know there's some of it that he was. He was a little bit embittered toward God, which is really astounding to think about, because you have God right in front of you with all this. You know this glorious image, imagery, and yet it's I don't know. Ezekiel, he's very human, I mean they're all, they're all human. But I mean you dig into his personality and he's, he has a very human response, that kind of like Moses. He's arguing with the burning bush, yeah, and Ezekiel's arguing with God. He says you know, I don't want to do this. He says they're not gonna listen to me anyway, and and so I think that there is that kind of that a little bit attitude there. Yeah, but it there's a big cost to being a prophet. A lot of them ended up killed, yeah.

Luke Taylor: 25:09

And in Ezekiel's case, if you go through his book, you know, you see that he's called to do some really wacky sign acts before the people, and so he becomes kind of a reject and outcast. He's socially ostracized. He At one point His wife dies and God says you know, I want you to show no emotion about your wife's passing, and, and because this is this is kind of symbolizing that I'm gonna lose my temple, I'm gonna lose my city of Jerusalem, and and yet I'm not gonna show, I'm not gonna be weeping and crying over it. And he says you know, I want you to go through all these things and and you're gonna. Your life is going to be laid out there as a living sacrifice. You are gonna just basically give everything up to show the people what I'm trying to communicate to them through your life.

Luke Taylor: 25:58

And so it was. It was a call to die to self, and so I can. You know I can understand some of his resistance there, but God gave him a week to think about it Comes back again. And and his call to Ezekiel. He says you know, if you, if you go and tell the people and they don't listen to you, then that's on them. Yeah, but if you were free, it refused to even go, warn them and tell them. Then I'm gonna hold you responsible for what happens.

Nate Vainio: 26:25

Pretty stout I conversation. Yeah, you know. At the same time, you know there have been times where I've heard people use that text in terms of sharing the gospel. You know that there's right is, and I would just kind of press pause there for a second and just just say do you think that's fair?

Luke Taylor: 26:46

Hmm.

Nate Vainio: 26:47

That, that? Do you think it's it? Do you think it's a my putting you on the spot?

Luke Taylor: 26:52

No, no that we, that we use that as a motivation to tell people about the gospel and to share that with them. I mean, yeah, if we don't, if we don't tell them that a reasonable is that a reasonable comparison?

Nate Vainio: 27:03

or reasonable to look at that text and what God is sharing with Ezekiel and say hey, in the same manner in which that was true, for God saying that to Ezekiel related to those people? Is it the same that God loves people in our day and age and that there's a sense in which that responsibility is on people in this day and age, but that we also bear a responsibility? Is that a reasonable application of that story?

Luke Taylor: 27:30

Yeah, I mean, that's that would be my modern application, for it is that it's not just sharing the gospel but, you know, warning someone if they're going to do something that's really going to mess up their life. I think so many times we don't want to, we don't want to look judgmental, we don't want to look controlling and we kind of like back off from giving some people advice. But God wants us to help each other out, you know, and so it's kind of like we have to warn people sometimes. You know, if you do this, there's going to be some bad consequences. Or I did something like that.

Luke Taylor: 28:01

If you and this is what happened to me, you know, I think we got to jump in some there sometimes and yeah, so I would, I'd apply it to sharing the gospel as well. Yeah, you know God, God might look at us some day and say, why don't you go tell and tell your neighbor, tell that person about me, or invite them to church or something? You know you just kind of left them out there hanging and and maybe you were the only person who could have reached them.

Nate Vainio: 28:23

So well, it's a pretty interesting conversation that I think it's interesting when you see these conversations that are person to person. They're very similar to manner in which Moses spoke with God and.

Nate Vainio: 28:37

God spoke with Moses in the sense, you know there's.

Nate Vainio: 28:39

There's the times where Moses is arguing, you know, on behalf of the people, or what have you, but there's this banter back and forth between Moses and God about the people, not necessarily God just talking and saying, hey, here's, here's the message, take it. See, there's a back and forth there and and I see that in this Ezekiel deal, and then that's an excellent, an excellent moment there, I'm curious throughout the, throughout the totality of the book then. Okay, so we start out here as we're talking about this little bit of a back and forth, the personality, the push and pull between Ezekiel and God, and it's like God's stretching them a little bit, or what have you. Is that just in the first part of that, or is that We've covered the first three chapters? But no, I mean that. I mean that, oh, you mean, does it continue throughout the dynamic of Ezekiel struggling with his call, throughout the rest of the book, as, as God brings things to him, do we see that continue to happen or does he get a little more in step as time wears on?

Luke Taylor: 29:56

Yeah, you know. So God does something a little bit different with Ezekiel. He puts a restriction on him that for the first 24 chapters of the book, the only words Ezekiel are allowed to say are what God puts in his mouth. So he doesn't really get an opportunity to back talk for a while. But you do see a bit of a change in Ezekiel's heart as you get to the end of chapter 24.

Luke Taylor: 30:20

Chapter 24 is the big turning point of the book. That's when all Ezekiel's prophecies come true Jerusalem falls, the Babylonians roll in and from. The second half is a different type of book, but for that first half Ezekiel's walking them through all of what's going to happen. And it's when you get to the end of chapter 24, that's when, as I mentioned, his wife passing away. That's when that happens and God is just very blunt. He says I'm going to take your wife and you are to show no emotion, don't go through any mourning.

Luke Taylor: 30:50

And his life is Ezekiel's life is supposed to be a symbol to the people and through all this, this is the point for Ezekiel where he finally submits to God. He's like you know that his heart has finally been worked on throughout the course of this book. He's like okay, god, I'm all in. You know, it kind of took to that point, took 24 chapters, yeah, but he didn't get a lot of opportunity to talk back. Jeremiah, you see a little bit of that. There's some argumentation with God. But in Ezekiel, yeah, he had to work through some things. He's very relatable.

Nate Vainio: 31:21

Yeah, well, I think that's the thing about some of these prophets, that, well, even Moses and some of the characters, you think, if you've been in the church, if you grew up in the church, the tendency I would fear would be that you potentially use this word and I don't mean it in its extreme or in its in its realist word but you well, you elevate them. I was going to say DFI, you know, but you'd put them on a pedestal and elevate them to this status. And what I'm hearing you say about Ezekiel is this guy, this was as much of a man in terms of human as there is. Yeah, and you see that with Jeremiah, you know some of the other prophets as well. You see that. Well, you see, and then you get to the New Testament. You see that with some of the church leaders, you know Peter and Paul and people with a attitude and anger, issues, potentially, yeah, a sharp tongue, you know, like Paul, and what have you. That's kind of interesting. I'm humored by that from time to time where.

Nate Vainio: 32:31

Paul gets going on something and his sharp tongue gets him, gets him slapped in the face in the book, right At one point.

Luke Taylor: 32:37

It's interesting, isn't?

Nate Vainio: 32:38

it. But you know it's interesting that you know, as we're talking about that you see an interesting progression. Or, as you and I are talking here, I see an interesting progression in the sense that you know we start with a guy who's down he mentally, emotionally, spiritually down on the side of a hill upset. God takes him a direction and it seems like he's got some training to do, but God's still using them.

Nate Vainio: 33:11

And so you and I think in our culture sometimes there's this idea or there, or maybe I should say there are some people in our culture who have an idea of they can't do something until everything's right, until I get everything straightened out and right. Well, it's not necessarily the case. I mean there's. We want to be moving in a direction and improving and growing and what have you. But you know, there's still some of those stages there where you know God can do his, god can do his work with you.

Luke Taylor: 33:43

You know, as you're saying that, like, yeah, you're just kind of putting pieces together. I hadn't even really done with Ezekiel, but he's probably thinking oh yeah, I've been training to be a priest, I've gone through all the schooling. I'm 30 years old, I'm a priest. Yeah, I'm ready for ministry. Yeah, but it's really more like God said well, you might think you're ready, but I've got to walk you through a few more things first. Yeah, it's just like what you're saying there.

Nate Vainio: 34:04

Yeah, oh, man, well, okay, so we've. We've spent a few minutes on the chapters one through three. We skipped ahead to chapter 24 and the passing of his life. Is there anything else in there that you think of as noteworthy in terms of in? Not necessarily in the prophetic sense we'll get to some of that in a moment but I think in the, in the preparation of the prophet, in the preparation of the person. Is there anything else in those chapters that you see developing by the time you get to 24?

Luke Taylor: 34:45

You know, there there is just a little well, like I said, he's it is not till 24 that you really get the mature, spiritually mature Ezekiel that he said. You know, hey, god, here's the blank check to my life and and says I'm just going to do whatever you say from here on out. So there's a. There's an interesting passage in chapters chapter eight through 11. God kind of takes Ezekiel spiritually. He's over in Tel-Abeb, god comes over. It's kind of strange how it says this, picks up Ezekiel by the hair and carries him off. Now it's it's like he carries off his soul in a sense, or his spirit.

Nate Vainio: 35:21

And just like that, we are going to rip the Band-Aid off of this episode, press pause and come back next week for round two with Luke Taylor from the Cross References podcast. Feel free to reach out and check his podcast out. I'll have the link in the show notes for you, and next week we will dig in. Well, I say dig in. We're going to pick up where we left off and I believe we are going to end up having a third installment of that to wrap up Ezekiel. So you'll want to be sure to hang around and check those out over the next few weeks.

Nate Vainio: 35:58

In the meantime, homework assignment here for you is to dig in to Ezekiel and I would encourage you to read multiple chapters at a time. A lot of times people want to dig in and read just one chapter and kind of soak it up and break it down. Just the opposite is what I would recommend to start, dig in, read several chapters, like you would a novel, get an idea for the flow of the book and the chapters and what have you, and then go back and check it out. But that would be my encouragement for you Take what you can from our conversation and see what the Lord will speak to you and the books of the prophets. So until next week, god bless.