S5: Day 253: Ezekiel 34–36

0:00Hey, you're listening to a year in the Bible with Daily Grace. This is Shelby and I'm here with C.J. We're in the book of Ezekiel. We're getting to one of my favorite chapters in the book of Ezekiel today. We're going to be in chapters 34 through 36. We'd love for you to leave us a comment or a review. Let us know if this episode or another one that you'd listen to recently has been helpful to you. That means a lot to us. So C.J. chapters 34 through 36, what's happening in these chapters today? So big picture, it might be helpful to understand or to think of Ezekiel as made up of two parts. People will disagree, but I think it's helpful for just trying to get a lay of the land. Ezekiel 1 through 33 is all about judgment, culminating with the destruction of Jerusalem. And then 34 through 48 to the end of the book is all about restoration, a future hope. So judgment and hope, which of course is sort of a pattern we already see on the small

1:02level in the prophetic literature like we've talked about before. So that means today's chapters are a little bit more uplifting. So praise Lord. So in Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel still called to prophesy even after Jerusalem's been destroyed. And he is called to judge the shepherds of Israel, who have led Israel astray. But the hopeful component is that Ezekiel promises of a future Davidic king or a Davidic prince, as he's called in Ezekiel. And again, this is sort of pulling from all of these rich texts in the Old Testament that we've been covering so far in our podcast where the Davidic king is supposed to rule and usher in this time of restoration. We think of 2 Samuel 7, this promise that a Davidic king will rule and will set all things right. And then in chapter 35, Ezekiel offers another brief oracle against Seer or Edom for trying

2:04to steal the land of Israel. But that's just kind of like a little blip on the radar in these chapters because then we get to chapter 36, which I'm guessing is the favorite chapter that you're referring to. Where it talks all about God restoring Israel and exchanging this heart of stone that these people have for a heart of flesh, giving them a new spirit. So again, we have a lot of positivity in these chapters. We have a promise of a future Davidic king and we have promise of a new spirit. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so what are our takeaways from these chapters? What can we pull out and apply to our lives? So these two promises of a Davidic king or a Davidic prince and then a new spirit are obviously very, very important to us as we move throughout the Old Testament and we enter the New Testament. And they're good reminders that we have Christ as our Davidic king or our good shepherd. And then we also have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. And even though in chapter 34 of Ezekiel, we are reminded that there are times where

3:05people who were meant to lead us well have failed to do that. I'm sure we all have people that we can point to. Parents, faith leaders, coaches, people who we trusted, even people who were supposed to be spiritual mentors to us, but they let us astray or they weren't the type of people that we were hoping they'd be. We are reminded that through Christ, he's the ultimate shepherd. He's the good shepherd. And then also speaking of this new spirit, I mean, this is just New Testament 101. We are grateful and we are thankful that we have living within us a new spirit, the Holy Spirit who takes a residence within us, who motivates us to follow the Lord well, who transforms us from the inside out to make us more godly people and to be more Christ-like. So again, even though Ezekiel seems like it happened a long, long time ago and is sometimes hard to understand all the metaphors and all the images, I think here we have clear examples

4:06whereas Christians we can really resonate with the text of Ezekiel. So yes, totally. And I mentioned at the start of Ezekiel that this book is the book that made me begin to fall in love with the Old Testament. And it was probably chapter 36 where that began because I read this first where it says I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh. And even though I had very little theological understanding and I was really just digging into my Bible for the first time, I saw a picture of my life in that. And I thought, here's something in the Old Testament that seems to reflect what God has done in me. I feel I've been given a new heart like I can see how the Lord is changing me. And so I love those verses. I, like you said, I think it's just a really clear picture for us of what the Lord has done for us. And so love getting to this chapter and reading through it. We are thankful for the hope that we find in it after glimmers of hope but a lot of judgment

5:08in the previous chapters. So okay, thank you so much for walking us through 34 through 36. We're going to continue in a Sequel tomorrow.