Ezekiel chapter 1. We'll be looking
at verses 1 through 3 this morning. The title of the message is A
Captive's Vision. A Captive's Vision. Ezekiel chapter 1. The Scripture
says, Now it came to pass in the thirteenth year, in the fourth
month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives
by the river of Chabar, that the heavens were opened, and
I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month,
which was the fifth year of the king of Jehoiachin's captivity,
the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son
of Buzi in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chabar, and the
hand of the Lord was there upon him. Captive's vision. A captive's vision. This book
of Ezekiel takes place five years after the captivity of Judah.
You remember the prophet Jeremiah told them concerning their sin
that they should repent, but they would not. And God said,
70 years you shall be in captivity to the king of Babylon. And this was five years into
the captivity. 65 more years were left. And there was a man by the river
Chabar and his name was Ezekiel. This man Ezekiel of whom this
book was written, by whom this book was written. And he was
by this river of Chabar which is in Babylon. And there we find
the people of God in chains. There they are by this river.
And if you go over to Psalms, look at Psalm 137. Psalm 137,
and you can, I see this being the psalm of these captives by
the river. Psalm 137, it says, by the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea, we wept when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us
away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us required
of us mirth, saying, Sing one of the songs of Zion. These people who were captives,
these people who were in misery because of their captors were
the people of God. They are the nation chosen to
receive the promises of God, the law of God, and by whom Christ
should come. These were a people above all
peoples. The nation of Israel was chosen
of God. Loved of God. He said I chose
you not because you were the best or the brightest He said
you were the actually the worst you were the most stiff-necked
people yet. I said my love on you I chose you because of my
covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob These were blessed
people and Yet they forsook God these people were Sinful. They were sinful. And the reason they were in captivity
was because of their sin. Because of their idolatry, they
would not turn to God. Therefore, God sent them into
captivity for 70 years. So, here was this man Ezekiel
by the river among the captives. Here was a man chosen of God. a man who was to be one of the
great prophets of Israel and yet he was among the captives. By God's grace this morning I
want us to see the picture that the Holy Spirit paints for us. See the picture here of which
the nation of Israel and especially this man Ezekiel is a picture,
a type of us who are the elect of God. There's a picture here
before us of how God, before the foundation of the world,
chose a people for Himself. The Father, by His own sovereign
election of grace, determined to save some of Adam's fallen
race. Israel is a picture of this.
This man Ezekiel is a picture. This man was not just chosen
when he was by the river. He was chosen long before that. He was among a chosen people
of God, which picture the elect. Go over, you know it well, the
book of Ephesians chapter 1. In verse 4, The Scripture says of
the elect, He says, according as He hath chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. And He's chosen us to
be what? To be holy and without blame
before Him. This is known as the election
of God. But not only did God elect a
people, not only did He choose a people, and leave it to chance
as to how they would be saved. No, God chose a people and then
predestinated all things for the accomplishment of their salvation. He says, in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children. In other words, all the affairs
of the universe, all things that happen in time and eternity are
in order to secure The salvation of the elect. You know that everything
works together for good to them who love God, to them who are
what? The called according to His purpose. Having predestinated us. He predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of His dear Son. that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren. Therefore, none, none of them
who are elect should ever be lost, but they all should be
gathered safe to Christ forever and conform completely in the
image of Christ. How do we know this is going
to happen? Because God determined it. God predestinated it. Yet, we know this, all of God's
elect people are not born holy. Is that correct? All of God's
people are not born holy. Although God predestinated them,
purposed them, chose them to be holy, yet this is not our
natural condition as we are born into the world. What is our natural
condition? What is the natural condition
of man as he is brought forth into this world? It is captivity. It is captivity to Satan, captivity
to sin, death, and hell. And this captivity begins with
the fall of our Father. We have one common father. I don't care who your father
is in this time frame. I know this, we all can trace
our ancestry back to one man. One man, Adam. Adam. Adam was the first of us and
Adam was the best of us. You should not think ill of Adam
because he's the best that God ever created. He is the best
man God ever made was Adam. He made him upright. He made
him holy. He set a crown on his head and
set him in charge of the whole world. Adam was the best of us. He was
perfect and upright. And because he was so, he was
also a representative man, a representative man. Our father represented us. We read that in Romans 5, 12,
wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death
by sin, so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. Wherefore, by the disobedience
of one, many," listen, we're made sinners. How were you and
I made sinners? We were made sinners by the sin
of Adam. That's how we were made sinners.
And that depravity, that nature of Adam, when it fell, when it
died, it was passed down to his children, and his children's
children, and so on and so on until it got to you. And you
and I were born with the same nature. This kind of levels all
men, doesn't it? It just kind of puts all men,
I don't care if you were born in a palace or in a cave, you
were born with the same wicked nature as your father, Adam. You were born in captivity. When he sinned, death fell on
his nature, and that nature fell on us. That death fell on us.
Look over one page in Leviticus, in Lamentation 5. Just over the
page there from Ezekiel. Lamentations chapter 5 and verse
16. Listen. The crown is fallen from
our head. That crown that God put on our
father, Adam, has fallen. The crown has fallen from our
head. Woe unto us that we have sinned. For our heart is faint. For these
things our eyes are dim. Man by nature is weak and blind. so that he cannot
free himself. Oh, that sinners would see and
weep because of their captivity. That's my heart's desire, is
that God would reveal this. You know what? I've never stopped
learning this. If you've stopped learning this, something's wrong.
If you've stopped learning about your own soul, your own depravity,
then something's wrong, because I've not found the bottom of
my depravity. I've not found an end to it. That sinners would see the captivity
of their nature. That all of Adam's race by nature
are bound to sin and can by no means of the flesh or earthly
religion save themselves. Do what you will. Believe what
you will. Determine as hard as you can. You cannot break these chains
of sin. Not by any carnal means. Not by any carnal means. Remember,
we are dealing with a spiritual thing. A very spiritual thing. I don't care what you do in the
flesh. Man, there are a lot of people who have these ceremonies.
I read of a Catholic ceremony, and man, there's hundreds of
things that he has to do with his body. They count them in
order. They have to make the sign of
the cross. They kneel down. They step two steps forward.
Then they wave the smoke. And there's a whole bunch of
things they're doing. That is carnal. That cannot deliver
the soul from sin. It cannot. Now, they hate to
hear that. But that's just so. You can do
what you want to. You can't deliver yourself. Behold how Adam's race goes about
to foolishly establish their own righteous. See how blindly
they grow up in the dark trying to please God. Why do you think
their creeds are constantly changing? Because they have to modify them. What they did before, their conscience
won't let them continue. It has to be more and more and
more. And enough is never enough. They
always have to have more. Why? Because it can't free them. They can't be freed by all their
mission work, by all their ceremonies, by all their decisions for Jesus
and determinations. They cannot free themselves.
Sinner, I plead with you, come to the river of Chabar and weep
for your sins. You have sinned against God. Come and see the captivity of
your nature. Hang up your harps. That's what
the world desires, just like they desired a song from God's
people on that river. They said, come and sing, come
and have mirth. That's what the world calls men
to do. Don't listen to that. Man, I know this. I am a downer
to this world. I know that. I know people don't
want to hear this. They want to hear how good they
are. They want to hear how special they are. That's what this world
wants to hear. They want to hear a happy tune.
I'm sorry. There is no happy tune concerning
your nature. God says you should come and
weep. Solomon said, better is the house of mourning than the
house of feasting. That's a wise statement. Better
is the house of mourning. Well then, is there any hope
for such captives? Yeah. Yes, there is hope. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
I wouldn't have a message. If I just had that and closed
the book, there'd be no reason for us to be here. But there
is hope. There is hope for captives. And here it is, the election
of God. There it is. The only hope for
any of Adam's race is that God should choose some. That's it. The election of God. Praise God
for His sovereign grace who has loved us and chose some that
He would save For had there been no election unto salvation, there
would be no hope at all. There would be no hope. If God
had not purposed to save some, none of us, we would have been
like the angels. Remember the fallen angels? Those
that sinned against God are still in chains of darkness, reserved
for damnation with no hope. But man failed, and God before
the fall purposed to save some. Here's hope. Here's hope. But there's some. Perhaps me. Wouldn't that be good if the
Lord instilled some hope in a sinner's heart? Behold, in our text, then the
hope, the hope for the elect captives is that God should come
to them. Look at that. In verse 1, he
said, he said, I was among the captives by the river of Chabar,
that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. When Adam sinned, what was the
only hope for him? The only hope is that God would
come to him. Adam ran from God. This morning, sinners, you are
running from the only hope. This is why Free Will Works religion
is so foolish. They say, well, if you just exercise
your will, do you not realize that there is none willing? There's none willing. No one's willing to come to God.
Not by nature. The only hope then is if God
comes to you. The only hope is if God comes
to you. Man by nature will not and cannot come to God. Jesus
said this to those Pharisees. He said, and you will not come
to me. You will not come. Why will man
not come? I preach a gospel of free grace.
I preach a gospel of Jesus Christ who's accomplished salvation.
I preach a message of forgiveness and pardon through Christ, faith
in his blood and righteousness, and yet men will not come. Why? Why will they not come? I tell you, even because they
cannot come. They will not come because they
cannot come. Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind
is hatred against God. For it is not subject to the
law of God. Man by nature will not submit
to the law of God. Now he'll submit to his version
of the law of God, right? As long as he can change it,
as long as he can modify it, then he'll submit to it. But
he will not submit to the holy standard of God. What's God's
standard? How is it that you should enter
glory? It is that you should be as righteous
as God is. That's how. There's no variation
of that. You are either righteous or you're
not. There's no progressive righteousness. There's no progressive holiness.
You're either holy or you're not. It's an all or none principle. And if you're not as holy as
God is, you cannot enter into heaven. So you will not submit
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. In other words, you cannot
submit to the law of God because you hate Him. 1 Corinthians 2
and verses 13 and 14 says, we speak not the words which of
man's wisdom, that man's wisdom teaches. What does man's wisdom
teach? Works, free will, religion. That's the best that men can
come up with. But we teach what the Holy Ghost
teaches. Comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. See, we don't try to tell you
how to be saved by carnal means. We tell you how it is a man is
saved is comparing spiritual things with spiritual. You're
spiritually dead, you need spiritual life that only the Spirit of
God can give you. You see, all those are spiritual
things. But the natural, the captive man receiveth not, he
will not receive the things of God. Election, he will not receive
the predestination of God. He will not receive that salvation
is completely the work of God alone without his works. He will
not receive these things. They're foolishness unto him. The message of God to the lost
is foolishness. It's foolishness. Neither can he. This has to do with ability.
He will not and he cannot. Because he is spiritually discerned,
judged, the scripture says. Jesus said, he came not to condemn the world. Why? Because the world was already
captive. It's already condemned. tug at
the chains of your captivity, try to free yourself however
you will. You will not free yourself except
Jesus come and set you free. Unless he comes to you, you will not be free. Jesus said, a strong man armed
keepeth his palace at peace. See what Satan is doing? He keeps
you in all the mirth. He keeps you in all the pleasure.
He keeps you and he tries to hold you in that captivity. What's the only hope then? A
stronger man. Come. And spoil him. That's it. That's the only hope
for you. It's the only hope for you is
that Jesus Christ come to you. come to you as he came to Ezekiel
here. Notice this, that the heavens
were opened and I saw the visions of God. Verse 3, the Word of
God came expressly unto Ezekiel. And this vision of Ezekiel, it
says, the heavens were opened. You know, I was reading that,
and I thought of only two other places that that takes place.
First of all, at the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember
that when He come up out of the water, the Scripture says, the
heavens were opened. The Spirit of God descended on
him like a dove. And the father said, this is
my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. What was the heavens
open for? To testify that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God. To testify. God said, that man
is my Savior. That man pleases me. That man is my righteousness. That man is all the salvation
of my elect people. That's what God was testifying.
The heavens were opened. He saw Christ. The other place
was when Stephen was stoned in Acts chapter 7. As he was bowing
down to die, he said, I saw, I see the heavens open. And who
was there? The Son of God. That's what he
saw. So when the heavens are open,
what does this mean? He's going to see a revelation. Of who? Christ. Christ. Every time you open this book,
you should look for Christ. Otherwise, Your reading is empty. If you're looking for how to
take care of your family and how to do your bank books and
how to have a good marriage and a good life, you're missing everything. The heavens are open right here. And what does this reveal? Jesus
Christ. When God comes to a man to save
him, he's going to reveal his captivity. But then he's
going to show him who it is that can set him free. He's going
to show him Jesus Christ. Behold, God, who has chosen his
elect people, who are by nature captive sinners, has also predestinated,
decreed all things to obtain their salvation, which is in
and by Jesus Christ alone. God has chosen us in Christ. That is, all the responsibility
of salvation rests on Him. All the salvation and deliverance
of the captives of Israel rests on Jesus Christ's work. God purposed
that His Son should redeem His people by His one offering. We just read it a few minutes
ago in Ephesians 1. God purposed, chose us before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy. How? By Jesus Christ. By Jesus Christ. Not Jesus Christ plus your works. Not Jesus Christ plus your decisions. Not Jesus Christ plus your religion. Jesus Christ alone. He is the
manifestation of God and salvation. He's everything. He's everything. In Hebrews chapter 9, it tells
us that He, by His one offering... Listen, Jesus Christ on the cross
was not there arbitrarily. He was there specifically doing
a work. He was working! What was He doing? He was dying under the justice
of God. That's what He was doing. The
sins of His elect were put on Him. He was responsible for all
of our sins. He was responsible to pay the
debt to God we could not pay. Ephesians 1, 7, In whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of His grace, Oh, are you such a captive in
need of God's deliverance? Then behold, the heavens are
open, and Christ is the only one who
can save you. This is the word of God, that
you should believe on the Son of God. that you should forsake all of
your works, all of your religion, that are filthy rags, and cast
your soul completely and absolutely on His blood and righteousness.
Look away from yourself. Look away from trying to free
yourself. You can't do it. Look to the
only one who can free you. He's it. Look to Jesus' blood and righteousness. Why do you labor for that which
is not bread? You captives, why are you struggling?
Why do you kick so hard? Sin never satisfies. Sin only breeds trouble. And you know what the sad thing
is? Trouble never causes repentance. It only breeds more sin. And more sin, more trouble. More
trouble, more sin. More sin, more trouble. It's
constant. It never stops. It never ceases.
Why then would you labor in religion to try to save yourself when
I'm telling you it's already done? The message of the gospel
is clear. Salvation is accomplished. Believe on Jesus Christ. And you who do, listen to me.
I want you to know how blessed you are. Look at our text. In verse three,
the word of the Lord came expressly to everyone on the
river. Look at it. Is that what it says?
There were a bunch of people on that river. There were a bunch
of captives that day. But I tell you, the word of the
Lord came only to Ezekiel. You get that? Do you get this how privileged
you are to believe? Even so, salvation is only expressly
given to the elect of God. You who believe, listen, do not
think so little of your faith. Now truly, your faith is little. I know this because my faith
is little. It's small. But don't think smally
of faith. Because faith is a gift of God. Faith in Christ Jesus alone is the manifestation, it is the
evidence of spiritual life. You know, when I was born of
the Spirit of God, it's not that I felt any overwhelming thing. It didn't have anything to do
with my feelings. What it had to do with this,
do you believe on the Son of God? Yes. Well, there's the evidence
that you are born again. Don't look anywhere else. Faith. Faith is the evidence because
faith is only a gift of God. John says this in John 1, he
says, as many as received Him. Have you received Him? Have you
believed on Him? As many as received Him, listen,
to them gave He the right. You got a right. You know what
your right is? To be called the sons of God. Matter of fact, Jesus said, I
will be your God and you shall be my sons. That's what he says
in the book of Revelation. You got a right to be called
the Son of God. Man, that's good. Does that give you any reason
to poke out your chest? No. because we were born not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. The reason you believe is because
you were born of God. That's it. You've got no reason
to poke out your chest and be proud. For by grace you are saved
through faith, and that faith is not of yourself. Faith is
a gift of Almighty God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, we
are his skilled labor, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God before ordained that we should work. You know, see
that this is all of God. This is all of God. If I'm free,
I'm free because of God. He freed me. Can you come to Christ? Right
now, can you come to Christ? And I'll tell you what, if you've
ever come to Christ, you'll never stop. I have never stopped coming to
Christ. Faith in scripture is always
present tense. It's very important. I believe on Christ now. And I could care less about faith
10 minutes ago, because I need faith now. And I can't trust faith tomorrow. I must have faith now. And listen,
faith frees the captive. Faith in Christ sets us free. It's not the faith, it's the
object of faith. The reason I'm free from my sins
is not because of my faith, it's because of the object of my faith.
I don't rest my freedom in my faith, I rest it in the object
of my faith. He has made me free. And if I'm free, I know this,
I have been chosen of God. before the foundation of the
world. I know this, that God predestinated me to be conformed
to the image of his son, and he will not rest until it's done.
He'll not rest until it's finished. Right now, everything's working
toward that end. Everything. We are free because Jesus has
accomplished all our salvation. Notice then the response, lastly,
notice the response of those to whom Christ is revealed. In
verse 26, this is the end of the vision. And above the firmament there
were above the heads was the likeness of a throne, as the
appearance of a sapphire stone, And upon the likeness of the
throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above opponent. Verse 28, as the appearance of
the bow, the rainbow is in the cloud of rain. So was the appearance
of the brightness round about this throne. This was the appearance
of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it,
I fell on my face." This is the response of everyone who sees
the Lord Jesus Christ and believes. We fall on our face. You know what Moses did when
God revealed Himself in the burning bush? The Scripture says He hid
His face. You know what happened when Daniel
saw the Lord above that river? He said, I fell down, I lost
all strength, and my comeliness became corruption. Isn't that
what you get when you come in the presence of the Lord? Isn't
all your beauty become ugly? Isn't that so? All those works
that you think are so good before his presence, they become nothing
but sin. When John saw him, he said, I
fell at his feet as dead. Isn't that different than how
religion tries to come to Christ? They come to Christ demanding.
We come begging. We don't demand merit. We must
have grace. And so it is with everyone who
comes To everyone to whom Christ is expressly revealed, to every
captive, we fall and we worship Christ. Do you believe? Have you seen
the Son of God? Worship Him. Is he not worthy of all our praise? Now, I'm not talking about lip
service. That's easy, isn't it? I'm talking
about giving my life for the glory of God. That's what believers
do. And you know what? I do it freely.
I'm free. I'm free to serve Christ. I'm
free to serve Christ. May God add this blessing to
the reading of His Word and the study of His Word.