Always make a witness for Christ and with necessary use words. Let's talk about it on this edition of He-Lighting. That's Steve Brown and this is He-Light. He doesn't think of himself as super spiritual but he is honest. He loves the Bible and he loves the teacher. You apply it to daily living. Steve? Mike, you've had your Bible open to the book of Ezekiel as we continue with our study in Ezekiel. We're going to spend today and tomorrow probably all next week with the Prophet Ezekiel. And then we shall move on. By the way, appreciate your prayers this weekend. I'm going to be speaking at the Billy Graham Training Center, the cove near Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown. And if you think of it, I sure would ask you to remember me in your prayers. And if you're within driving distance of the cove, you might want to give them a call. I don't know their number and see if the seminars filled up it isn't. It'd be nice to see you there. A couple other things. Check out our website, www.keylife.org. And then a reminder that key life is a member of E-C-F-A, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Well, now to back to Ezekiel, my friend who wrote a wonderful book. We spent some time looking at some exegetical notes. We looked at a general consideration that Ezekiel afflicts the comfortable and he comforts the afflicted. And that's a general principle to be applied to God. We noted the strength and the power of the God of the universe. We spent some time in a Christophany in the first chapter, verses 26 to 28, where I believe Jesus appears in his pre-incarnate state as the second person of the Trinity. Then we looked at five aspects of the calling of Ezekiel and centered in on the fact that if you're called by God, there is nothing grander and more wonderful than serving God because he provides where he calls. But if you haven't been called, you're on your own, and you're not called to fix every problem, you're not the world's mother, everybody who's in trouble, you don't have to go out and fix the trouble. Make sure God calls you and then when you go, go in obedience. And then we took some time yesterday to talk about the symbolic action of Ezekiel. I talked about drama in worship and what this says to that. No other prophet does so much actual symbolism in his ministry, our drama is does Ezekiel. That's Ezekiel 4, 1 through 3, 4, 4 through 8, 4, 9 through 12, 5, 1 through 12, 12, 1 through 16, 12, 17 through 20, and 24, 15 through 27. Drama, and I said some things about drama and worship. Perhaps they were a little bit strong, but I really think that one of the effective ways of people of God worship and one of the effective ways of teaching biblical truth is through drama. Did you know that old started in the church? Theater was the church's purview for many years in Western civilization. And then some tweets came along and decided you can't do that. That's profane and we kicked the artist out of the church. And we've suffered from it ever since. But today some churches are picking that up again. I don't think that you necessarily ought to do that at your church. But if you are doing it, I bet that you found it quite helpful in the worship of the church and the communication of God's Word. And then I have one of the things before we leave this particular point of the symbolic actions of Ezekiel, the prophet. And that is, and I said that earlier when we started the broadcast, I don't know who said it, but it's a wonderful statement. Always witness, and when necessary, use words. I teach a course or doctoral students that perform theological seminary where I teach. And it's titled, Communicating in the context of post-modernity. And the course is built around some paradigm shifts, some real changes that are taking place on our culture. If you just watch MTV, you will know that we're not in Kansas anymore. I mean, if you've taken the time to look around, it's not that we debate what's true and what isn't true. And I was reading a book just yesterday in my son-in-law's library, and it was written by two Twits who were talking about how it doesn't matter as long as your ego is completely eliminated. There is no truth. There is no reality. We're doing something that's really different than our culture. And so I would suggest that probably it more than any other time than in biblical kinds, what we do is more important than what we say. What we do is more important than what we say. Have you witnessed the people in your neighborhood? You say, yeah, I took the four spiritual laws over there. My Bible, man, I told them. They didn't receive Christ, but I told them. I told them they're going to hell, and they're going to get theirs. Don't do that. Let me take something. Before you do anything about the four spiritual laws, bake a cake. Before you do anything about the four spiritual laws, take some cookies over to your neighbor. Be there when they lose a loved one, mull along if somebody in your neighborhood care and reach out, and I would take that as a microcosm of your neighborhood and apply it in a much larger context to your city and your town. Feed the poor. Let people see that you care. Earn the right to be heard. That is so very important. And when I read about Ezekiel symbolism, I thought about it is important for us to act out the reality of what we're going through and who we are always witness. When necessary, you were, you think about that. Well, we take some time on Wednesday's broadcast answers and questions. My pastor will be on Friday, and we'll ain't suspend the entire broadcast answering questions. And we love to get your questions. I always say the only dumb ones the one you don't ask, but I really mean that. If you've got a question and it's a question, let us know. And we have a large library here, and we'll spend some time finding out some answers if I don't know the answer. And I don't know the answer to a lot of questions. You don't use the 1-800 number for that, though. You have to write the questions down. You can get the magazine, get key life tapes, get the booklets that we're offering all for you or make the contribution. If you use the 1-800 key life number, but you've got to ask your question by writing it down. Send it to key life. Post office box 5,000, mate Lynn Florida, 3-2794. If you live in Canada, key life Canada post office box 32150, Cambridge Ontario in 3H5M3, or you can email us at Steve at keylife.org and be sure and give us your regular mailing address. If you want an answer and you always get an answer from me or a staff person or on the broadcast or in the magazine. All right. This first question is from Pennsylvania. How is it that Jesus does not know the time of his own return? Well, that's true. When he was asked, Jesus said only the father in heaven knows the time. Now, what Jesus is doing at that point and one of the two things that might be happening. First, he's identifying with the father, but I think secondly, and this is the most important, that when Jesus, when the second person of the Trinity was in his incarnational state, in other words, when he entered time and space, when he walked our dirty roads, when he was tired, the way we're tired, that it wasn't a game. We have this idea that Jesus was playing games that he really wasn't as human as we are. That he really didn't suffer the way we suffer. In fact, that's called nostic dosatism. Now, you can impress your friends with that particular terminology when they ask you say, well, look it up in the dictionary. But that was an ancient heresy that said that anything that was flesh was really bad. And of course, God would not do anything as dirty as hang on across in the flesh. But let me tell you something. I was declared a heresy a long time ago and for very good reason, because when God entered time and space, he wasn't playing games. How do I know that? Because the writer of Hebrew says he was tempted at all points as we are tempted. Is that real temptation? Yeah. Was he really tired or just faking it? Yeah. Did he not know everything because he limited himself? Yeah. That's exactly what it means. It was not a game. When he entered time and space and became human, he really did become all human, and at the same time being all God. Paul wrote to the Philippians in the second chapter that he emptied himself. You say, we especially have angelicals. Liberals have trouble with the other side of this. They have trouble with the transcendence. We have trouble with the amendments. In other words, we have trouble with the humanness of Jesus. And he was quite human. He was thirsty the way you're thirsty. He was lonely the way you're lonely, and he didn't know everything. This was not a game when the second person of the Trinity became man. All right. This is from Ohio. How does our free will fit in with God's will for our lives? If God is predestined our lives for us, do we actually have a free will? So how do you make that fit? I have a profound danger for that. I have not the fogiest idea. I used to think I did. I mean, I did year about the time the switer was working on his hospital and there was a man standing off to the side. This was in Africa. And switer asking if he would help. And the man said, no, he couldn't because he was in the intellectual switer, the famous scholar of Bach, wonderful organist from Mendus, brilliant man, smiled, got his hammer, and said, I used to think I was in the intellectual. Back in the days when I thought I was, I had to explain everything. I would have told you I would have come down on one side or the other of that truth that you brought up, listener in Ohio. I would have said God's sovereign. He's in charge of everything. Every molecule has been ordained from the foundation of the earth. I deal with it. Now you still feel like you're free, but you're really not. God has arranged all of this and that's cool. And then there was another time in my life when I would have said God limits his knowing power and his sovereignty so we can be perfectly free. I would have said maybe maybe with those who advocate openness theology that God doesn't know the future because the future hasn't happened yet and he's going to work with us. And we'll see how it comes out. That way you resolve both sides of that truth, but the Bible says that God is absolutely sovereign. And the Bible says that you are free and responsible. And frankly, I don't understand that, but the essence of Christian majority or maturity is the microphone. There's a high tolerance for him to give it. If you've never stood before God and been confused, you've never stood before God. Hey, listen, I got to go. I'm history. Whenever you write a call, please give us the call letters of this great station. A lot of wonderful people make this broadcast possible. And then one of the thing, key life is a listener supported production of key life network.