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50 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
Man's untamed spirit spurns the Redeemer's love, and no truer picture of the altogether intractable exists than this creature traversing the desert according to its own nature alone.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with Ezekiel.
First comes the temporal: "the former rain and the latter rain" (Joel 2:23), granaries filled with wheat, vats overflowing with wine and oil.
Exell's Victorian homiletic unpacks this indictment with surgical precision.
Locusts in ancient Near Eastern agriculture were catastrophic—entire harvests obliterated, years of labor reduced to desolation.
The Biblical Illustrator (1887) unpacks four essential truths from this revelation: First, Christ is true God, equal in essence, power, and glory with the Father.
Exell, the Victorian homiletic scholar, identified two essential truths within this summons.
Against this apostasy, the prophet confronted those who declared, "It is vain to serve God." The nature of God's demanded service comprises five essential marks.
First, the Lord would return—not in spatial movement, for He fills heaven and earth, but in manifestation of favor.
Exell's Victorian analysis of Ezekiel 14:26 unfolds the promise "And ye shall eat in plenty" across eight spiritual dimensions: satiation of body, contentment with portion, the capacity to eat, and supremely, the enjoyment of Elohim as our God in Christ.
The work of retribution operates as a fowler's craft—precisely, inexorably.
There is a time for the divine decree to be issued against a nation; a time when, though Noah, Job, and Daniel should stand before Him, yet He will not be entreated; though they cry early, cry aloud, cry with...
First, it demands a *specific pursuit* (*zēteō* – to seek diligently).
This statement carries three profound truths about divine communication and human responsibility.
Yet the Elohim who governs temporal harvests governs spiritual ones identically.
Yahweh pleads the justice and equity of His cause through three arguments: attestation of creation itself (Verse 1), appeal to Israel's own memory, and commemoration of manifold blessings bestowed upon them.
This admonition addressed the spiritual lethargy of post-exilic Judah and remains urgently applicable to baptized Christians today.
God does not pronounce judgment until men have first abused His benevolence and provoked His intervention.
First comes the temporal: "Afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2:28).
Man is a creature requiring help, and the text instructs where that help originates.
The Jews of Haggai's time had fallen into spiritual lethargy, their slothful security masking a deeper neglect of covenant duty.
King Josiah had fallen in an ill-advised battle; Assyria's power waned while Babylon's ascended.
Their repentance was fundamentally defective—a *nostos* (return) of behavior without a *epistrophe* (turning toward) Adonai.
"Four young men have I slain with the sword . . . yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord." God's dealings with nations and individuals during trial proceed not from vindictiveness but from love and compassion, designed...
The Lord does not merely turn away; He *releases Himself* (*aphistemi*), detaches Himself, shakes off an encumbrance without righteousness.