Ezekiel Spirit Lesson Plan
Sunday School • Sunday, November 8, 2026 Class Time: ~60–65 Min
“A New Spirit Will I Put within You”
Ezekiel 33; 37; 47
Opening 6–8 min
Context 3 min
1. Forgive 15 + 12 min
2. Two Sticks 20 min
3. Temple 15 + 2 min
Opening Question Warm-Up Discussion
6–8 minutes
• Who is the most forgiving person you know? What makes them that way?
Facilitator Note: Let several people answer and describe them. Then go straight into the overview.
Context
Who Ezekiel Was, and Where He Was
3 minutes · tell this in your own words
Ezekiel was a priest. He should have spent his life serving in the temple at Jerusalem. Instead he was rounded up and marched about nine hundred miles to Babylon, years before the city finally fell — while Jeremiah was still back home preaching to whoever was left, and while Lehi was headed the other direction entirely. Ezekiel lived in a camp of deportees by a canal. The record says he sat where they sat.
These were people who knew exactly whose fault it was. They had lost their city, their temple and their country, and most of them figured they had lost God too. What Ezekiel got sent to tell them is the most hopeful thing in the Old Testament.
Part 1
1. The Lord Wants to Forgive
Ezekiel 33 · about 15 minutes
Somebody in that camp said out loud that they were rotting under their own sins and wondered whether there was any point — and God answered them.
READ — EZEKIEL 33:10–11, THEN 33:16
10 Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
16 None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
ASK
• Put verse 10 in your own words. What are they really asking?
• God doesn’t answer with a rule. He answers with an oath — as I live — and what He swears about is what He wants. Why would He need to swear it?
• He says turn ye, turn ye. Twice. What does that sound like to you — a command, or something else?
• Verse 16 says the sins won’t even be mentioned. What is the difference between being forgiven and knowing it will never be brought up again?
• What would you say to someone who thinks they have used up their chances?
• Does this change how you picture God waiting for you?
Sunday School Lesson Plan • Ezekiel 33; 37; 47 Page 1 of 3
Sunday School • Ezekiel 33; 37; 47 Activity & Part 2
Group Activity
Activity — Our Own Babylons
about 12 minutes
Babylon was the country Israel was carried off to — and ever since, it has stood for whatever keeps a person away from God.
ASK FIRST
• What might our Babylons be?
Board Instruction: Build a list on the board. If they stall, prime it: a schedule that crowded God out, a screen, a grudge held so long it is furniture, comparing yourself to people online, exhaustion, a habit that isn’t wrong and isn’t helping, just drifting. Keep it to categories — nobody has to name their own.
• Does a Babylon have to be a sin? What else could it be?
• Why is a Babylon hard to leave once it starts to feel like home?
↳ If that last one needs a nudge: nobody has to drag you into Babylon. You can just settle there.
NOW SING OR LISTEN TO HYMN 7 TOGETHER
“Israel, Israel, God Is Calling.” Verse one and the chorus is plenty. Before you start, point at the list on the board and ask them to listen for what the hymn says to do about it.
THEN ASK
• The hymn is a call — somebody is doing the calling. Who?
• Who called you out of one of yours? What did they actually do?
• Who is sitting in one that you are already close enough to call? Not to fix — just to call.
Part 2
2. Two Sticks, One Hand
Ezekiel 37 · about 20 minutes with the activity
God told Ezekiel to label two sticks and hold them up in front of the camp until somebody asked what he was doing.
READ — EZEKIEL 37:16–17, THEN 37:19
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
ASK
• Two records — Judah’s is the Bible, Joseph’s is the Book of Mormon. Why would the Lord want two instead of one?
• In verse 17 they become one in Ezekiel’s hand. In verse 19, one in the Lord’s. What is the difference?
• Ezekiel’s whole job was to hold something up where people could see it until somebody asked. Who has done that for you — not preached at you, just lived where you could see it?
• What would it look like for you to do that this week?
Sunday School Lesson Plan • Ezekiel 33; 37; 47 Page 2 of 3
Sunday School • Ezekiel 33; 37; 47 Part 3 & Closing
Part 3
3. The Temple, and Why Water Goes Bad
Ezekiel 47 · about 15 minutes
Ezekiel saw water running out from under the temple door, growing from a trickle to a river — and was told where it was going and what it would do when it got there.
READ — EZEKIEL 47:8–9
8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.
9 And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.
SAY THIS about 90 seconds
“Why is the Dead Sea salty when only fresh water runs into it? Because of what happens on the way out. Every clean mountain river carries a little dissolved mineral — so little you can’t taste it. If a lake has an outlet, that rides on downstream and the lake stays fresh; that’s why the Great Lakes are fresh. If a lake has no outlet, the only way water leaves is by evaporating — and evaporation takes the water and leaves every grain of salt behind. A little more every year, forever. The Dead Sea has no outlet. Neither does the Great Salt Lake, though its ancestor Lake Bonneville did, until the lake dropped below the rim and the outflow stopped. The inflow was never the problem. The problem was that nothing could leave.”
ASK
• Verse 8 is a prophecy: the sea that nothing could live in shall be healed. What does it take to heal water — more water, or somewhere for it to go?
• Sin is usually more like the salt than like a flood — too small to notice on any given day. What is something small enough that you would never notice it in a week, but would notice in ten years?
• If repentance is the outlet, what happens to someone who never lets anything out? Does that only apply to sin, or also to grief, resentment and shame?
• What are the outlets in your life — the places where things actually get to leave instead of piling up?
• The water issues out of the temple, and nearly everything we do inside one is done for somebody else. Why do you think the Lord built it to flow outward?
• When you have walked out of the temple, what was different? Can you put words to it?
• Verse 9 says everything lives whither the river cometh. What has come back to life in you, or in someone you know, because of the temple?
Let these last two breathe. The answers come slowly and quietly. Don’t fill the silence.
Conclusion
Closing
2 minutes
God swore by His own life that He wants us back. He gathers people from wherever they have settled and makes what was divided one in His own hand. And He gives us a house with water running out of it that heals a sea nothing could live in. All three are Jesus Christ. The last line of Ezekiel’s book is the new name of the city: The Lord is there.
Sunday School Lesson Plan • Ezekiel 33; 37; 47 Page 3 of 3
