Ezekiel | Week 3 | Bill Bush | Full Service

Pastor Bill Bush · Oct 10, 2022

Big Idea

Quoting the message: The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart, end quote. — our real struggle is never our circumstances but where our heart stands with God.

God offers hope even in judgment: He scatters to discipline those who are His and destroys those who refuse Him, but His intent is always to gather His people back and give them a new heart. That new heart comes only through looking to Jesus, lifted up like the bronze serpent, who died and rose so we could be born again.

Key points

1
1Ezekiel exposes a heart problem hiding behind religious confidence
Pastor Bill walks through Ezekiel 8 and the vision of idol worship happening inside the temple itself — an Asherah pole, elders worshiping Egyptian gods in secret, women worshiping a harvest god, and priests bowing to the sun with their backs to the temple. Those still in Jerusalem assumed they were the righteous ones while the exiles were the rejects, but Pastor Bill shows it was exactly backwards: arrogant hearts, not location, were the real issue.
2
2Even in coming judgment, God marks and preserves a remnant
In Ezekiel 9, a man dressed in linen (a picture of the pre-incarnate Christ) marks everyone who mourns over sin so they will not be destroyed. Pastor Bill notes that destruction is real, but even inside it God is preserving those whose hearts are soft toward Him.
3
3God's glory leaves the temple reluctantly, pausing as if reluctant to go
In Ezekiel 10-11 the glory of God departs the temple in stages, pausing at the gate and finally stopping over the Mount of Olives, which Pastor Bill connects to Jesus later beginning His final ride into Jerusalem and ascending from that same spot — showing God's patience and the gospel's presence even in the departure.
4
4God promises to scatter, gather, and give a new heart
Working through Ezekiel 11:14-21, Pastor Bill shows that God tells the exiles He will be a sanctuary to them, gather them back, and give them a new spirit and a new heart of flesh instead of stone. He frames this as the gospel already present in the Old Testament — God saves and changes us before we ever obey.
5
5Scattering can be discipline or destruction depending on the heart underneath
Pastor Bill distinguishes discipline, which is future-focused and meant to grow God's own children, from destruction, which is punishment for those who refuse Him. He points to the church's own experience through COVID and cultural upheaval as an example of scattering that revealed what was really in people's hearts, using the image that the same sun melts wax but hardens cement.
6
6Nicodemus shows what it means to move from a hidden heart to a surrendered one
Pastor Bill walks through John 3, where Nicodemus, a respected teacher of the law, comes to Jesus at night not understanding how a person can be born again. Jesus points him back to Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness as the pattern for His own crucifixion, and Pastor Bill notes that Nicodemus later helps bury Jesus in broad daylight, evidence his heart had finally softened.
7
7Whether "I am the Lord God" comforts or terrifies you depends on whose you are
Pastor Bill points out Ezekiel's repeated refrain that God is the Lord God Almighty and that people will know He was there, then illustrates with a childhood memory of fearing a burglar until realizing his dad was home: the same presence of God is either the best news or the worst news depending on whether you belong to Him.

Application

Pastor Bill's closing question is simply: which heart do you have — the stone that won't soften or the wax that will?

Stop blaming your circumstances
Recognize that your marriage, job, money, or politics are not your real problem right now — where your heart stands with God is. Bring that heart, not your circumstances, to Him.
Let the heat soften you, not harden you
When God allows scattering or hard seasons, let it reveal and soften your heart toward Him rather than letting it harden you further; ask what it exposed about your actual trust in Him.
Look to Jesus on the cross
Like the Israelites who looked up at the bronze serpent to be healed, stop trying to fix your sin yourself and instead look to Jesus, lifted up, as the only way to be saved.
Confess and be born again if you never have
If you have shown up to church but never surrendered your life, confessed your sin, and trusted Christ, pray now to turn to Him as Lord and Savior and receive a new heart and the Holy Spirit.
Ask honestly how you'd feel if Jesus showed up to talk with you
If the thought of Jesus inviting you to sit down and talk makes you nervous rather than excited, Pastor Bill says that reveals heart issues you need to deal with, no matter how long you've attended church.

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“what's the lesson for us in that today that we're gonna look at in chapters eight through 11? I'm gonna go verse by verse through all those chapters. No. I'm just gonna summarize, then we're gonna look at a part in chapter 11”
From the transcript
“So in chapter eight starts off it's it's the beginning of the second vision that god gives Ezekiel. What he does is he answers the question. Ezekiel is like, but why”
From the transcript
“And that's really what happens in chapter nine. It describes the destruction of Jerusalem by God, but even in there, here's what I want you to see today, we're gonna see the hope”
From the transcript
“And then the destruction happens. And that's what night and so then chapter ten and eleven then picks up in in this idea of it”
From the transcript
“it moves out over and it pauses. It's as if even though God says, I'm getting out of the way. This is gonna happen because you will not trust me”
From the transcript
“starting in verse 13, he says this. Ezekiel's finishing up his vision. He says, while I was still prophesying, Pelletiah, son of Benaniah, suddenly died”
From the transcript
“So here's what God says to him. He says in verse 14, then this message came to me from the Lord. He says, son of man, the people still left in Jerusalem are talking about you and your relatives”
From the transcript
“I wanna look at a story in John chapter three. There's a famous verse in the middle of this story, John three sixteen. But what's happening in John three”
From the transcript
“I wanna look at a story in John chapter three. There's a famous verse in the middle of this story, John three sixteen. But what's happening in John three”
From the transcript
“So it says in verse one, there was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus”
From the transcript
“everyone reads John three sixteen and you read that whole passage? The power of that moment is verse fourteen and fifteen because he points out why he should know this”

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Day 1

There is something disorienting about Ezekiel 8. God lifts the prophet up in a vision and carries him to Jerusalem — not to show him the city's poverty or its political chaos, but to show him what is happening inside the temple itself. Four scenes, each one worse than the last: idols at the gate, elders burning incense to carved images in secret rooms, women weeping over a pagan god, men turning their backs on the Lord to worship the sun. The people had not abandoned religion. They were still showing up. But their hearts were somewhere else entirely, and God saw every corner of it. This is the part that lingers. The people of Jerusalem believed their location — the holy city, the temple — meant they were on solid ground. They assumed the externals covered the internal reality. God's word to Ezekiel is a quiet and sobering correction: proximity to sacred things is not the same as a surrendered heart. Before this becomes a judgment about ancient Israel, it is worth sitting with the question honestly. It is possible to be in the right place, doing the right things, and still be hiding something in the inner rooms. God sees those rooms too. The invitation here is not guilt — it is honesty. He already knows. He is simply asking us to look.

For reflection

Is there an area of your interior life — a habit, an allegiance, an anxiety — that you have been keeping in a back room, away from God's gaze?

Pray

Pray for the courage to let God into the parts of your heart you have kept hidden.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message takes us deep into one of Ezekiel's strangest and most unsettling visions — and lands somewhere surprisingly personal: the condition of the human heart.

Discussion questions

1
In Ezekiel 8, God shows Ezekiel four vivid scenes of idol worship happening inside the temple itself. What does it tell us about human nature that people could be going through the motions of religious life while their hearts were somewhere else entirely?
2
The people still living in Jerusalem believed their location — being in the land, near the temple — made them the righteous ones, while the exiles were the problem. What does God's response to that logic in Ezekiel 11 reveal about how He actually measures a person's standing before Him?
3
God promises in Ezekiel 11 to give His people a new heart and a new spirit — not as a reward for getting things right, but as something He Himself provides. What's the difference between trying to improve a stony heart and actually receiving a new one?
4
Jesus points Nicodemus back to the bronze serpent Moses lifted in the wilderness — a story where the only thing that saved a dying person was looking up. What does that image suggest about what 'looking to Jesus' actually involves, and what it doesn't involve?
5
The message drew a contrast between two responses to the same heat: wax softens, cement hardens. How might a community like ours help one another stay soft and responsive when hard or scattered seasons come, rather than drifting toward hardness?
6
The pastor described a simple gut-check: does the thought of Jesus saying 'let's talk' produce joy or nervousness? Without anyone answering that aloud, what do you think makes the difference between those two reactions — and how does what we've seen in Ezekiel and John 3 speak to it?

Pray together

Ask God to give us honest, soft hearts — and to help us trust the One who scatters, gathers, and gives new life

Topics

Born Again God's Remnant Heart Change Jesus and the Old Testament Repentance

Ezekiel | Week 3 | Bill Bush | Full Service

Big Idea

Key points

Application

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

7-day devotional

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Small-group discussion guide

Open

Discussion questions

Pray together