Ezekiel - Chapter 1
"The Man And The Message"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 1:1-3 |
| 1. The MAN a) The Priest b) The Prisoner c) The Prophet 2. The MESSAGE a) The Transcendent Glory of the Sovereign God b) The Utter Sinfulness of Mankind c) The Certainty of Divine Judgement Upon Sinners d) The Hope of Future Restoration Through the King |
Ezekiel and chapter 1, Ezekiel chapter 1, and what I want to do for you this evening is lay a foundation that I believe will be essential for the weeks that lie ahead. So do bear with me. We'll be looking at verse 1 specifically this evening, but we won't be looking at too much of chapter 1 tonight. I want to lay the foundation and the context of this great book that we hope to study in the weeks that lie ahead.
Verse 1 of chapter 1: "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him".
I think you would agree with me that false assurances are awful things. To be under a delusion or to be under a false assurance, on occasions, humanly speaking, can be fatal. But if we broaden that concept of a false illusion and assurance into the spiritual sphere, we find that false assurances can lose men and women their eternal immortal souls. As we go through the Old Testament scriptures, and specifically the minor and major prophets, we find that the Old Testament people of God - more often than not - were under false assurances. They had deluded themselves. In many occasions, and we've seen it in recent days in the book of Habakkuk and Haggai, when the prophets of God - the men of God - came unto the people of God with the message of God, all they did was protest. It seemed to go against their lifestyle, everything they held dear. The prophets of God that came to them were a threat.
So we hear protests, and we hear them within the book of Ezekiel also, where the people of God say: 'Can God judge His chosen people?'. Prophets of judgement come. Prophets of righteousness come and declare God's judgement: God's wrath will be poured out upon the people of God - and the people of God object and say: 'But we are God's chosen people, we are God's elect. God cannot judge us. Some say God's holy city cannot be destroyed. We dwell in Jerusalem, and you as a prophet come and tell us that enemies of God - Babylon - will come and sack the city and burn it? That can never happen! The temple of God dwells within Jerusalem, and the temple of God is the symbol of God's presence with His own people. Are you telling me that God would let our enemies come into the chosen city of God and destroy it?'.
The objection is: are God's promises toward us sure, no matter what? I mean, if God has said that we are secure, if God has said we can be assured of His protection and His safety, is that not enough? To have the word of God, to be the chosen people of God, to have the covenants of God, to have the law of God and the testimonies of God, to have the Ark of God, the Ten Commandments, to have Aaron's rod, to have the Holy of Holies where God's Shekinah glory dwells - is that enough?
The message of the prophet Ezekiel is the message of all the prophets. That is what Israel failed to recognise toward their God. Oh, they could recognise that they were God's chosen. They could recognise that they, out of all the races of the earth, were most blessed, and all the other races of the earth would be blessed through them. They recognised they had all the promises of God, but what they could not bring themselves to recognise was their own sin. In failure to recognise their sin, they failed to recognise the holy God that they were called to serve. They continued sinning, and as they continued to sin they assumed that God's smile would always be upon them no matter what they did because they were God's people, because they were in the covenant of promise, because God had shone on them in days gone by. They felt that they were secure, that they couldn't be moved from the firm foundation of Zion. That false assurance was further cemented in their mind by the false prophets who came along too. They simply agreed with that mindset. They preached: 'Peace, peace', when there was no peace.
In the first deportation of the children of Israel to Babylon you find that, in the little concentration camps all around the nation of Babylon, that these false prophets were going around and prophesying falsely, telling the people: 'Don't worry, you're out of the land of promise now but God's promises are still toward you. You are still God's people. God loves you. God is still smiling upon you. And just in a few days, a few weeks, perhaps even at the most a few months, God will send an army from Jerusalem and He will defeat your enemies and He will bring you all back home to the land of Zion'. Then the second deportation took place. Then the third deportation, and with the third deportation of Jews from the city of Jerusalem, the Babylonian empire burnt it to the ground. Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel, is heard to say in response to the messages of the false prophets who speak: 'Peace peace', when there is no peace, the cry of God's people goes up: 'The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved'.
What was Israel's mistake? Their mistake was they failed to grasp the abominable nature of sin, and the terrible holiness of God almighty. We are saved, and I believe very strongly in the eternal security of the believer, but do you know something? If any doctrine that we have and believe and hold onto dearly becomes a cloak of false security, of a false assurance that will make us numb to sin and numb to the holiness of God, we must beware! If anything in our lives makes us numb to the awfulness of sin, and to the goodness and the righteousness of God, there may be something wrong with the balance in our doctrine. For the consequence, as we look at the prophet Ezekiel, is this: that if we do not realise the awfulness of our sin and the holiness of our God, we will cause the glory of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, His fullness - if you want to say, the candlestick of the Lord Jesus Christ within His church - there is the danger that we cause the glory to depart. Along with the departing of that glory there is a forfeit of reward.
Ezekiel was a prophet of judgement but, you know, Ezekiel was more than a prophet of judgement because he brought hope to God's people. First of all, he brought judgement to them, but at the end of all the judgements that he pronounces upon the people of God, and then upon the Gentile nations round about them, there is a message of great hope. There is a message of reconciliation, a message of reconstruction of the nation of Israel, of the temple of Israel, of the city of Jerusalem. But the reason why Ezekiel's message was so unpopular was that he brought a message of hope that rested upon the completion of Israel's repentance.
All the prophets were preachers of repentance. That probably accounts for why most of them were martyred, including the last great prophet, John the Baptist, who lost his head because he was a preacher who stood in the wilderness - no one else was doing it - and said: 'Repent!'. What often happens is, when the people of God do not repent, in order that God drives them to that holy act of repentance He must discipline them. That is what is happening here within Ezekiel: He is disciplining His own people, and in order that Israel would be cured from the sin of idolatry they had to actually enter into the city of idolatry, and be sickened with it all under the judgement of God.
So we find Judah in Babylon. We find them singing the Psalm, Psalm 137: "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 us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?". Away from Jerusalem, away from God's physical, visible presence upon the earth, Israel are separated from all that they know to be a closeness and a nearness to God - here they are in Babylon! But isn't it amazing that, while this remnant of Judah sits by the rivers singing depressing songs, that in verse 1 of Ezekiel chapter 1 you find a man, and while all around is despairing - what a contrast! While these people have already put up their harps on a willow tree and sat down to weep and to mourn and to cry for the loss of Jerusalem, this man Ezekiel is seeing visions of God. Ezekiel sits by the river Chebar and he sees the Shekinah glory of God leave the temple of Jerusalem. He sees that glory follow the people of Judah throughout their pilgrimage, right down to the land of captivity in Babylon. There they are - God's people and God's prophet in the midst of captivity and bondage - he is seeing that very Shekinah glory of God.
As we go through this book we will see that Ezekiel sees the glory of God in so many visions, so many pictures and allegories throughout this book, and then God takes him to the middle of the book and shows him how that glory, that Shekinah, has departed from the people of Judah. But then - what a message of hope - as we find him coming to the end of this book, in the final chapters, and how he points to a day that is yet to come when that Shekinah glory will return to the people of God.
'And Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Doth its successive journey's run'.
We must, as we look at this book, realise that everything within it is for Israel. We do not confuse the church of Jesus Christ with Israel, but as we look at Israel in this book, surely we must, as Thomas Watson says: 'Think in every line you read that God is speaking to you'. Specifically this message is only to the nation of Israel, but there are spiritual principles within this book that we need to apply to our everyday lives.
As we seek to do that we look first of all, this evening, at the man Ezekiel. It's very interesting to note that there is nothing at all known about Ezekiel in the whole of the word of God, but that which we find in the book of Ezekiel. We find out that he was born just a year or so before the law book was discovered in the temple, as part of Josiah's reforms. In order to turn the tide, good King Josiah decided that he was going to bring the law of God back to the centre of Jewish faith and politics. He sent servants into the temple to dig deep and to look for the Torah of God. When they found that law it was read out to the whole nation, and a measure of reform and godliness was brought back to Judah.
Ezekiel was born into that atmosphere, but we find as we read the historical records of the Old Testament, that when he was barely a teenager, he would have heard the news of Josiah's death at Megiddo. There good King Josiah went to stop Pharaoh Neco coming in and invading God's nation. Here is a king of Judah willing to stand for God, willing to stand for what is right, but he is killed. That message of his death must have been devastating to the nation. Then as that teenager grew, it's most likely that he heard the preaching of Jeremiah. He may even have known the ministries of Habakkuk and Zephaniah. But one thing is absolutely sure: that he witnessed within his society a period of political instability following good King Josiah's death. He witnessed Judah's fortunes shifting from godliness, shifting from righteousness to the evil, wicked alliance and allegiance of Egypt. Then as we come to these matters within the book of Ezekiel, we find it moving from the wicked nation of Egypt to great captivity in the land of Babylon.
Now, we know from this book, as we scour through it, that Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel. By this time Jeremiah was an old man. If you can picture this in your mind as we read this book, Jeremiah was ministering to a remnant of Jews in Egypt. Daniel was taken to the court of the king of Babylon and had become the Prime Minister of the whole of that empire. And here is Ezekiel with the captives in the second deportation from Jerusalem, and he is brought down to the river Chebar - the rivers of Babylon. In fact, if you go to Iraq today there is a tomb there which is identified as the tomb of Ezekiel. It probably is because it's round about the same area that Ezekiel ministered.
What do we know about this man Ezekiel? There are three things that I want you to note from these verses that we have down before us. The first: Ezekiel is a priest. The second: he is a prisoner. The third: he was a prophet. Now, as you read verse 1 you find that Ezekiel was a priest. It says it very clearly - and for him to be a priest in Old Testament times it would mean that he came from the upper crust, the upper class of society. His father would have been a priest. Like Jeremiah, his contemporary, who was a priest and a prophet, so Ezekiel would be a priest and a prophet. Every eligible man from this upper class would begin his service in the temple. It would be a great honour to come for your first sacrifice, for your first offering at the age of 30 years of age. However, Ezekiel, when he was 30, was in captivity in Babylon. He was unable to fulfil his calling as a priest while living in exile far from Jerusalem. He's away from the temple. He's away from everything that they know of, as Jews, that means 'God' and 'the environment of God'. But we read that at the age of 30, instead of beginning a priestly ministry, he begins the ministry of a prophet. So he is a priest who ministers as a prophet.
But the second thing that we see is that he is a prisoner, and if you know your Old Testament history you'll know that in the year 606BC the Babylonians came into Jerusalem and they took the first deportation of Jews off to Babylon. We know that in that first deportation Daniel went with that group. Then a few years later there was the second deportation in 597BC, and this time young Ezekiel was taken at about 24 or 25 years of age. If you turn to chapter 3 and verse 15 you will see that Ezekiel's home in Babylonia was a place called Tel-Abib. It was to the north of Babylon on the river Chebar, near the river Euphrates. There he settled in a kind of concentration camp of deportee Jews. This young man Ezekiel settles down in the mud huts of exile's Judaism. In chapter 8 and verse 1 you find that Ezekiel had his own house. This concentration camp was nothing like Nazi concentration camps, or concentration camps that we've seen in recent days on our television from Kosovo and places like that. This was a place where they were looked after rather well, but yet they were away from Jerusalem. It seems that they had their own homes, that they could do their own thing, they could worship their own God.
We find as we read the book that not only had Ezekiel his own home, but he was married. We find that, as we read through the rest of the book, that his wife eventually died in the very year of the final siege that began in Jerusalem. The exiles among whom Ezekiel lived, like him, had come from the upper crust of Judean society. We believe that they were privileged folk, that they had everything they needed. As Dickens says, in some measure: 'For them it was the best of times but it was the worst of times'. They had all the affluence they needed. They had all the bread they needed. They had all the wealth they needed. They had all the health they needed, but they were out of Jerusalem, they were separated from God - and there was this dichotomy, this contradiction in terms: being well off, but being separated from their God. This group of privileged people was the people that were renowned for not listening to God's prophets in the past, for not heeding the warnings of exiles that would come. These people were the people who were sitting crying: 'The harvest is ended, the summer is over and we are not saved'. These were the people who were listening to the false prophets, who were waiting every single day for deliverance from Babylon, and be brought back to their riches, the wealth and their prestige in Jerusalem.
As far as they were concerned, Ezekiel's message was a load of rubbish. He was very entertaining in the dramatisations of God's message that he did. In fact, as far as they were concerned all he did was divulge entertaining prattle that was meaningless. But no matter how much they laughed, the message of Ezekiel is this: God would vindicate His prophet, and God would vindicate His truth. If you turn with me to chapter 33 and verse 33 you see that - chapter 33 and verse 33 - and out of all the crying of the ridicule of pagan Judaism there comes this voice from God: 'And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them'.
Opposed to the message of the false prophets, the exile would not be short. They would not be delivered very soon. They would not be spared. In fact, many of them would be slaughtered in exile, or would die in exile. But the miracle of this man Ezekiel, as a priest and as a prisoner is this: that in distant Babylon, away from the temple, away from Jerusalem, away from the visible Shekinah glory of God, he is inspired by the Spirit of God to proclaim the message of God to God's people. Not only that, but this prophet of God is inspired to live the message before them.
That brings us to how he was a prophet. At 30 years old he begins his prophetic ministry. He continues it for just over 20 years. He preaches this message - a message that no one will listen to, a message that no one seems to take heed to. His prophetic ministry began in the 5th year after the arrival in the land of exile - verse 2 shows us that. He becomes a preacher in the midst of this concentration camp. He becomes a missionary to his own people, telling them to repent, telling them to turn back to God, that the Shekinah glory might return to His people.
Like his New Testament equivalent, John the Revelator in the book of Revelation who also was a prisoner on the isle of Patmos, this man like John, in prison, saw the heavens opened. They were given visions of God. What often happens when that happens is that such visions put men on their faces. Ezekiel was called in his ministry to much personal and painful suffering. He was called to live out his message. He was called to demonstrate it in his very life and, I don't know about you, whether you've read this book or not, but as I read it, it brings home to me the words of the apostle in Hebrews 11: 'Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth'.
You know, as you read this book you find out that for some time this man Ezekiel was made dumb. He couldn't speak - and God did that! God ordered him on one occasion to lie on his side as a demonstration to the people of what they were like and who they were facing, and who they were turning to for help. He lived on loathsome food and God, again and again and again, commanded him to do these symbolic acts in order to get the attention of his own people. He was told to shave his head (that's a picture of him, by the way, on your study sheet), to shave his head and shave his beard - humiliation. He was told to act like someone fleeing from war. He was told on one occasion to sit and just sigh to himself. Then when his dear wife died that he loved so well, and as it coincided with the final demolishing of the city of Jerusalem that it was meant to illustrate, that man of God was told: 'Today you're wife has died, and today you shall not shed a tear'.
It wasn't easy being a prophet of God. I hope you can see the parallel of the age that Ezekiel lived in and preached in, and the age that we live and we seek to preach in. The message has not changed - the message is that they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The message is that it is a hard thing to be a holy man, to be a holy woman, to be a holy teenager. It's hard. It's difficult. Everything is against you. This world system opposes you in every way that it can, and if you seek to follow God with all your heart and preach the message that God has delivered, you will suffer for it. In fact the only thing, perhaps, that we are promised is persecution. But isn't it wonderful to hear from the lovely lips of our Lord: 'Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake'.
What a man! What was his message? In 1 Samuel and chapter 4 and verse 21 you find a word that is very descriptive of the nation of Israel at this particular time. The word is 'Ichabod'. Of course, it refers in the original context to an entirely different situation but we could aptly apply it to the situation in Judah politically, religiously, morally and culturally, in the time of Ezekiel. Ichabod: the glory has departed. It summarises the whole of this book, Ezekiel - the Shekinah glory has disappeared from God's people. That's what chapters 1 to 3 tell us: 'The glory that you're seeing now Ezekiel', these great visions of God - chapters 1,2 and 3 - 'they have gone from my people!'. In chapters 4 to 24 we read that specifically: the departing glory from God's nation. Then in chapters 25 to 48 you find Ezekiel turns the tide and gives a message of hope: that God's glory will return to Israel one day, and there will be a temple rebuilt. In chapter 48, if you wish to turn to it for a moment, you see that great climax - the message of the prophet begins with Ichabod: the glory has departed, the Shekinah glory has disappeared, the only one that seems to be seeing it is the prophet Ezekiel, but God pronounces a message of hope. If they repent, God says in chapter 48 and verse 35: 'The Lord is there' - future - 'Prophet: the Lord will be there'.
This is a book of the glory of the Lord. The statement 'The Lord God' appears over 200 times. It is a book of 'Thus saith the Lord' - you read that 120 or so times. You also read that it's a book of 'The word of the Lord that came unto Ezekiel', you find that 49 times. The word 'Spirit' occurs 25 times, which is remarkable for the Old Testament scriptures. So you have here a prophet inspired by the Spirit of God, bringing the word of the Lord that came unto him, pronouncing: 'Thus saith the Lord, the Lord God over all the world, that His glory has departed from His people, but one day that glory will return'.
Now, I want you to get into the mind of the Jews at this time. It's important that you do it. It's important that you understand the context. Jerusalem has fallen, the Davidic house was cut off, the temple was about to be razed from the ground, the nation had been exiled from the land, and that brought with it a spiritual and emotional fallout. Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Jerusalem had dealt an awful blow to that false assurance that the people were under. It was as if their faith had failed them. In fact, more than that, they were emotionally and spiritually devastated and they were asking fundamental questions about their God: 'Is God impotent? Is the covenant God that we have given our lives to and sworn allegiance to - is He not all-powerful to save us? Has Jehovah betrayed us? Has He abandoned us in our greatest need?'. You know, to all intents and purposes for these children of Judah in Babylon, I'm sure that Merodach, the God of Babylon seemed to them to have prevailed over Jehovah. It seemed that he had gained the victory, and perhaps many of them were thinking: 'Well, should we not follow this god, this god who is stronger than Jehovah?'. You can imagine what it was like for God's prophet, Ezekiel, to face an audience like this - that was disillusioned, that were cynical and bitter and angry with God, and prophets of God, and all to do with God. This great house of rebellion had now collapsed, and there they were standing in Babylon, away from Jerusalem, away from God, crying: 'Is there no one to save us?'
Then for a period of about 10 years these false prophets are saying to the people: 'Don't worry, you'll return to the city. The city won't be destroyed. That's God's city'. But nevertheless, Jeremiah the prophet sends a message to Babylon, telling those people, contradicting the message of the false prophet: 'The city will be destroyed. The glory of God will depart from Judea'. Can we put Ezekiel's message and Jeremiah's message in a nutshell? Yes we can: 'The glory has departed but if - and only if - you repent, the glory will return'. This message of Ezekiel is a message of sin, a message of punishment, but a message of repentance and a message of hope of blessing in the future if the people of God repent. Ezekiel was coming, and what he was wanting to do was to destroy these false assurances, these false hopes and to awaken true hopes, true assurances from the word of God to the people of God.
Oh the parallels, at least for me, are staggering to our generation today. I think in many ways Ezekiel spoke to the darkest days of the nation of Judah. Indeed, as one writer said: 'He stood at the bottom of a valley in the darkest corner'. Do you not feel like that at times? I mean, you only have to listen to what's going on around us. You only have to hear the moral standards of this world and our leaders and our church leaders. You only have to take a glimpse into your own heart and see how the lust within you seems to, like with a magnetic power, attract everything that is without there. It just comes in, and at times without you helping it, it saturates your mind and your heart. This man Ezekiel had to meet the false hopes of this people, and the preaching of the false prophets, their indifference, their despondency that was begotten in days of sin and days of disaster.
Do you know what Ezekiel means? 'God strengthens'. God strengthens! I mean, what else would you need if that was your task - if that is what God called you to - to face these rebellious people, to face them in the midst of their captivity and preach a message of repentance that grated and went against everything that they believed in, everything that they held dear? He needed to be strengthened by God. Look at chapter 3 and verses 8 and 9, where God strengthens him for his task. Chapter 3 and verses 8 and 9 - God says: 'Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house'. He needed his forehead strong, for this man would have to face everything that God's people threw at him.
Now, there are several themes within the book of Ezekiel that comprise and summarise the message that God was giving through the prophet. You find the four of them down on your sheet, and it really encapsulates everything that Ezekiel says. The first, and to me the most significant item, of the message of God through Ezekiel is 'The Transcendent Glory of the Sovereign God'. It's right throughout the whole of the book. Verse 1: '...by the river of Chebar...the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God'. The first three chapters are just saturated with Ezekiel's visions of God by the river of Chebar. As you read them - go home and read them - they are saturated with majesty, transcendence, dignity, royalty, divinity.
We see very clearly from it all that Ezekiel's sense of God was not that of a friendly neighbour who he might address on a first name basis. But in this book God is beyond creation, God is seen to be beyond the prophet, beyond the prophet's explanation. That's why you find that, when the prophet receives a vision of God, it is 'the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord' - verse 28 of chapter 1. It's always 'the appearance of the likeness'. He can't describe God because we can't describe God!
He doesn't even describe the appearance of God. He can only describe the likeness of the appearance of God. He uses a way of speaking of Him that carefully avoids even the hint of actually seeing God or describing God, or 'if we could get a little bit of clay and make what God looked like to Ezekiel', or paint a picture of it, or get a computer screen that shows us the likeness of God, or get the BBC to show us the likeness of Jesus. That is why the Holy Spirit in His wisdom never tells us what He was like, because 'we know no man after the flesh; neither do we know God after the flesh, but they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth'.
Do you see the transcendence? Transcendence simply means 'He is above'. He cannot be explained. Now, how do we apply this to our lives? Well, this is how we apply it: the children of Judah knew what God was. They knew what He was like. Their fathers were the ones - Moses, who saw God face to face and talked with Him as a man talks with his friend. They received the law written by the finger of God, yet at this moment the glory of God had departed. They had forgotten the transcendent glory of the sovereign God that their forefathers once knew. Now, the question that we must ask of ourselves today is: 'Have we lost the awe for God that we once had?'. Have we lost the reverence for God that our forefathers once had? How do we know? The way to know is our relationship to sin. Just like these people, if we are making a lifestyle of sin and compromise and backsliding for ourselves, if we're rebelling against God like these people, then we will know.
Look at chapter 2 and verses 3 to 8. Verse 4, he looked, he beheld in the whirlwind. He saw a vision of God, verse 5, 'out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures'. Sorry, chapter 2 - I'm in the wrong chapter! Chapter 2 and verse 8: 'But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee'. Do you see the contrast? There was rebellious sinfulness, and the way that we can know whether we are acknowledging and whether we are in the awe of the transcendent, majestic, divine, awesome, sovereign God is: do we ignore our sin? Do we rebel against God and expect Him to smile at us? You have the sovereignty of God throughout this whole book - that He will make men and women know that He is the Lord. He will vindicate Himself, He will show that He has led His people into Babylon. God didn't let them go; God led them in! God did it. God was sovereign, bringing them through because He wanted those idolatrous children of God to go into that nation, and be sick with all their captivity and idolatry, and all the paganism, and to come out a pure people.
But secondly, the book tells us 'The Utter Sinfulness of Mankind'. Those two are always related by the way. When a man sees visions of God he always sees his own sinfulness, because his sinfulness is uncovered. You see that in Isaiah 6 and verse 5, that Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and His greatness and glory filled the temple, and he said: 'Woe is me! For I am undone; I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: but mine eyes have seen the Lord'. Do you know something? Their sin stretched throughout their history and, in fact, within this book Ezekiel says that they acted like a prostitute - the people. From the day of their birth they were like a whore and they actually, in chapter 16 (we don't have time to read it) - chapter 16 verses 46 to 48 - he says that they were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. What does that tell us? We're going to find out in the weeks that lie ahead, that God the Holy Spirit tells us in this book, and right throughout His word, that sin cannot be swept under the carpet. It cannot be made beautiful, it cannot be ignored, it cannot be excused, it is ugly, it is dirty, it is offensive. It cannot co-exist with the presence of a holy and a righteous God.
Thirdly, we find 'The Certainty of Divine Judgement upon Sinners'. In other words, it was the end of the road for Judah and Jerusalem. They were being cast out. If you want to liken it to the words of our Lord Jesus that we heard yesterday: 'The salt hath lost its savour and was thrown out to the road and trodden under the foot of Babylonian men'. Judah's destruction would be almost total and its people would be scattered to the four winds. Ezekiel says that they would be made 'meat for the cooking pot' and they would be cooked until they turn into a charred heap of ashes - chapter 24. No one would be able to save them. In fact, he says later in the prophecy, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were miraculously brought back from the dead, and stand between them and God, even all their righteousness accumulated in aggregate could not save God's judgement from His people. In fact, he said there wasn't a prophet able to stand within the gap. That doesn't mean no one was willing. I'll tell you what it meant: Ezekiel was probably willing but God made him dumb so that he couldn't stand in the gap. God was determined in His righteous wrath to judge sin, and He would judge it! The frightening thing that we find in chapter 9 and verse 6 is that he says: 'Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark' - that's the believing remnant - 'and begin at my sanctuary'. Begin the slaughter! Begin the judgement at the very place where the Shekinah glory has left - at the culprit! Is that not what Peter said in relation to the New Testament church: 'Judgement must begin at the house of the Lord'?
Fourthly and finally, it ends on a beautiful note because there is the message of 'The Hope of Future Restoration Through the King'. You know, there are three prophets in the word of God who wrote when they were out of the land - only three. There was Ezekiel, there was Daniel and there was John in the New Testament. All three of them wrote what we call, in theological terms, apocalypse - books that are highly symbolic in their language concerning God and judgement. But the books always end in a hopeful note for the future. You can see that very clearly because in the New Testament the book of Ezekiel is quoted at least 65 direct and indirect times, but 48 of those 65 are found in the book of the Revelation. The heart of the message of Ezekiel is this: 'The glory is gone. The glory will remain gone until you repent. But all of your idolatry and all of your wickedness and all of your sinfulness will not pervert or prevent My sovereign eternal will, and I will bring My glory back to Israel'. Isn't that wonderful? That one day there would be a Davidic Prince. One day there would be one in Judah who would rule righteously. One day God would give His people, Israel, a new heart and a new spirit. He would raise up for them a new temple. He would put His glory, His Shekinah, back. The temple in chapter 10 that is abandoned would return to glory again in chapter 43. All that we see throughout this whole book is sin, punishment, repentance, hope and glory!
As we will see next week in the vision that Ezekiel has of God in chapter 1 - that round the Throne of God there is a rainbow, and right at the beginning of this prophecy God is pronouncing judgement, but He tempers it with His mercy. Oh, there's a great hope of Israel's restoration and it's embodied in the words of their national anthem that they sing even today. Listen:
'Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of 2000 years,
To be a free people in our land:
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem'
One day in that land a remnant once again will show forth the glory of God in Jerusalem, but let me finish on this note: as we look at these studies week after week after week, would we please - in God's name - learn from Israel? 'Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come', Christ says to the church, 'unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent'.
Our Father, we thank Thee that the Lord Jesus is the light of the world. We thank Thee He is the express glory of that Shekinah that once dwelt above the mercy seat. But our Father, we also know that Israel ignored their sin and they still await the day when the glory will return. We thank Thee that it will return, but Lord help us not to be foolish enough to think that our glory will never depart, and to be under the false assumption that we are God's people, therefore all will be well. But help us daily to repent, to take up our cross and follow Him. In His precious name we pray. Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - May 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 2
"Visualising The Invisible"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 1:1-28 |
| 1. The VISION a) The Whirlwind b) The Cherubim c) The Wheels d) The Firmament e) The Rainbow 2. The LESSON a) The Glory of God Cannot be Limited b) The Judgement of God Cannot be Avoided c) The Blessing of God Cannot be Taken for Granted |
Now it's a delight to welcome you all to our Bible Reading this evening here in the Iron Hall. It's our second study in the book of Ezekiel, and it's great to see you all with us. We trust that as we meet around the word of God this evening, that the blessing will be ours from the Spirit of God. Ezekiel chapter 1 - now, we've a lot of material to get through this evening, and a lot of detailed verses of Scripture. So, please do read - I hope you've read this passage before you've come to the meeting tonight - but please do read it carefully with me, because we hope - God willing - to get through the whole of this chapter this evening.
Verse 1: "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings. Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies. And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies. And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host: when they stood, they let down their wings. And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings. And above the firmament that was over their 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 upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake".
Martin Lloyd-Jones in 1939, at the outset of World War II, wrote these words: 'I feel that there is a tremendous opportunity for preaching. At the moment what is wanted is the comforting to help the people over the shock, but following that the need will be for the prophetic note to awaken the people'. In the light of a national catastrophe Martin Lloyd-Jones called for the comforting of the people, but after the comforting of the people the need for the prophetic note to sound and awaken the people. I believe that the vision that we have just read did exactly that for the prophet Ezekiel. It was both a comfort by the river of Chebar, that God was still with His people, that God was still speaking to the prophet - yet at the same time there was a great warning, a great note, for the people to awaken and to follow their God again and to repent for the glory had departed. It was a warning that God was coming to His nation in judgement.
He had already deported some Jews from Judah, from the city of Jerusalem, in the first deportation - Daniel went with that. Now Ezekiel is a captive in this concentration camp at the river Chebar, that is the second deportation. Then there would be the third, and with the third the temple would be sacked - destroyed - and the whole city of Jerusalem would be burnt down. So the call of God, through this vision to the prophet Ezekiel, is: 'Waken up! I am with you, I will not leave you. My glory has departed, but you must awaken, you must repent of your sin - or else there will be trouble'.
We learnt last week that the context of this great prophecy was a time of great change. Individual lives were being shattered, there was sudden catastrophe had come into homes, they were broken up. Rich people, the aristocracy, the politicians were all lifted out of their homes, from all their riches, from all their affluence and wealth, and were taken to the land of Babylon and placed in this concentration camp. It was a time of despair. We read last week from Psalm 137: 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and there we wept as we remembered Zion' - they despaired! They were away from God's city of Zion, they were away from the temple - the visible place where God's glory dwelt.
The false prophets were coming and speaking peace when there was no peace. The false prophets were telling the people that God would destroy Babylon, that God would deliver them and bring them back to their city of Zion - He would set the captives free. But the great prophet Jeremiah had sent the message to the people in captivity: 'Settle down', he said, 'you're going to be here for 70 years, you're not going to get out until it's God's time, and until you all repent of your sin'. A time of great change, a time of great despair, and we learnt that the primary theme of this great prophecy is the departure of the glory of God from Judah.
We ask the question, and I believe accurately: is there not a great parallel with our age in which we live today? Do we not live in a society that is wrecked with great change, and hearts that are broken and failing them for fear because of despair? Ecclesiastically, within the church of Jesus Christ, is there not a time of the departing of God's glory from within it? What is the answer? We can wreck our brains, and scan the Christian bookshelves, we can go to America, we can find out church growth plans, we can devise new praise bands, we can think of more casual services to attract the lost into the church, we can appeal to the sign gifts that have departed since the New Testament, we can do all sorts of things - but it seems that the departure is still there. The glory does not return, therefore what is the need of the hour?
I believe the need of the hour is exactly what that need was in Ezekiel's day, and that is: a fresh vision of the glory of God. That is the theme of this great vision that you see the picture of on the back of your sheet - William Macdonald's conception of Ezekiel's vision. You can see the notes at the bottom of that drawing, that it's not completely accurate, because if you notice the cherubim all should have four faces: each of a lion, each of an ox, each of an eagle, and each of a man - but, for the sake of necessity in drawing it, he has only one face there. But that gives you an idea of what we've just read, this complicated passage of Scripture - but the point is that we are faced tonight with a vision of the glory of God. That is what is displayed within this vision.
So, what is the vision that we have before us? Well, you know that Ezekiel is full of visions - and indeed I believe that chapter 1 of Ezekiel, this particular vision, is the key to all visions within the Scriptures. I believe it's the key to all the visions within this book, within the book of the Revelation, within the book of Daniel, and I believe that it's the foundation of the apocalypse - the last book of our Bible. But we cannot fail to see, as we read this passage, how difficult it is to understand this vision. Indeed John Calvin, the great reformer, said: 'If anyone asks whether the vision is lucid, I confess its obscurity and that I can scarcely understand it'. Vernon McGee (sp?) says, in relation to Calvin's commentary: 'I am certainly a Calvinist in the sense that I must concur with his statement - neither do I understand Ezekiel's vision clearly'.
As we read these words, and they are so complicated, we can see right away that they defy the capacity of human speech for description. Whatever Ezekiel saw, as he tried to put pen to paper and put it into words that men and women could understand, it falls far short of the actual thing that Ezekiel saw. We must remember that as we read these words: this was not actually what he saw. What he saw could never be described! Yet nevertheless it must be written down, it must be conveyed, as it has been by the Holy Spirit. But we must remember as we begin this evening that this vision, above all things, was an experience. It wasn't a passage of scripture for Ezekiel, it wasn't a letter, but it was something that this prophet was caught up within himself - and we can never experience it. We can never fully understand what this man saw, and the only way we can share in it is in the words that he has left for us.
Now picture it, look at the diagram in front of you. He begins by sitting by the river of Chebar, and he is in a physical reality - OK? He's sitting beside that river, and he sees a physical storm coming towards him from the north. With that storm there are clouds and there are flashes of lightning, but as he watches that storm approaching him it's as if that storm is opened up - like curtains on a stage - suddenly drawn back to reveal a heavenly scene. Beyond those immediate curtains of earthly reality, the prophet Ezekiel is taken into a supernatural realm where he sees a vision of the chariot of God's glory. It seems that he sees this chariot as God rides triumphantly and irresistibly through all the eras of time.
You can see that he saw four living creatures, they're described as cherubim. You can see that they're connected with the chariot, yet they're individually distinct from it - they're not part of the chariot, but they're connected to it. Above all of that, you can see there's a throne. You can't see who's sitting on the throne, because there's a cloud in that diagram - but the word of God tells us that there is a man who sits on the throne. Now let me just say this before we go on any further: this is the highest vision of God that we have within the Scriptures, and within it there is a vision of a man who sits upon the throne. Now before we go any further, I want you to notice that this is a vision not of God - no man has seen God at any time, and I believe no man will ever see God - it's not a vision of God, it is a vision of the glory of God, it is a vision of the presence of God.
Now first of all, in the context of chapter 1, you can see that this vision first of all was an authentication of the call of Ezekiel to the prophet's office. All the prophets had some kind of supernatural visionary experience to bring them into the prophetic realm, and that is what it is here personally for Ezekiel. But more than that, it introduces us to all of the themes that we find within the prophecy - all of them are outlined within this one vision. God waited five years before speaking to Ezekiel, and sometimes silence speaks louder than words to show that God is not pleased, that God is angry with His people.
Now let's look at this vision as quickly as we possibly can, because we want to deal with everything within the passage. First of all there is a whirlwind - verse 4, look at it: 'a whirlwind came out of the north'. Now that is speaking of judgement upon Jerusalem, because Babylon - those who have captivated them, and taken them to their empire - they came from the north, the empire of Babylon, right down into Jerusalem and destroyed it. So the north there speaks of the Babylonian empire coming into Jerusalem and taking them captive. But within the word of God the direction of north is also a type, or a sign if you like, of the throne and the presence of God. You can see that from Isaiah 14 and verse 13, when he describes the fall of Satan and the motivation - that Satan wanted to exalt himself to the sides of the north. What did Lucifer want to become? He wanted to become like God, to exalt himself to the throne of God, to the sides of the north - and that is the general direction that the Old Testament people of God understood as the place where God was - northward. It's the idea of heavenward, that we look up toward God - look up for your redemption draweth nigh. That is the direction that the people of God ought to have their sights directed and focused to. In other words: God is there, God is up yonder, God is in that direction.
So, you've two things: you have the judgement of the Babylonians coming from the north, and you have the direction of the throne of God in the north. Two things that, to the Jewish mind, seemed to contradict one another - but it's not the case, it's the exact opposite. For what God's Spirit is saying through this vision is: 'You believe that My throne is to the north, the Babylonians are coming from the north, and the interpretation is this: I am the one who is sending the Babylonians'. Do you see it? There is a whirlwind, indicating a tremendous movement from the throne of God. What is that movement? It is the judgement of God. If you look at verse 4 you see that there is a fire as well, a light that is brighter than the sun - perhaps like an atomic blast - incandescent heat and light. There, in the midst of that whirlwind, there is great fire - why? Because our God is a consuming fire, our God is light! Remember at Paul's conversion there was a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun. You have a whirlwind, you have great judgement, you have great heat and great light, and all of those things are speaking to us of the unapproachable presence of God.
From the north - to the Jew a place of mystery, a place of darkness, a direction of distress, a place of judgement - there comes Judah's enemies toward them, by the hand of God influenced and directed, coming towards them. We are right away [shown] God's glory as the glory of a judge. Ezekiel's awe is not just from what he saw, but from what he heard - because he heard the whirlwind. Several times he tries to describe the sound that accompanied the vision. He says, look at the passage, that it was the voice of the Almighty. That's all he could describe it as: the voice of El-Shaddai.
If you go into Psalm 104 and verses 3 and 7 you read these words - you don't need to turn to them, I'll read you them: '[God is the one] who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who rideth upon the wings of the wind: At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away'. God is described as the one 'who rideth upon the wings of the wind' - that word 'riding' is the same word that you find in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 8, where God is described as 'walking in the cool of the day' after Adam and Eve's transgression. Now you might hear people say or depict that God was walking in the garden, having a stroll of some kind, leisurely - that is not the sense of the passage. The word is that God was 'riding', God was walking in the cool of the day, and it's a sense of judgement, it's the sense that - because of Adam and Eve's transgression - God was seeking them out in the garden, riding judgementally in the cool, on the wings of the wind.
That was the noise that accompanied the visions of Isaiah in chapter 6, the vision of John in Revelation chapter 1, and indeed we know that that is the noise that will accompany our Lord Jesus as He returns from the clouds - 2 Peter 3:10: 'But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up'. A fiery whirlwind from the north - speaking of judgement, speaking of their enemies, speaking of a God who would come in His unapproachable presence and holiness and righteousness as a consuming fire to His own people.
Then secondly we see the cherubim. In case you think I'm jumping the gun, verses 5 to 14 you find the cherubim, we know they're cherubim from chapter 10 of Ezekiel verses 1 through to 22 - where there's an even more detailed description of some of the things that they are doing in this vision. The cherubim, we read, could see and they could move in all directions without turning at all. That's important: they could move and see without turning. They could move quickly to accomplish God's will. They had four faces, they could see in all the directions of the compass. If you look at your sheet you will see that they each had the face of a lion, the face of an ox, the face of an eagle, and the face of a man. Many scholars believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who sits upon the throne, is revealed in His four aspects within the Gospels. In the gospel of Matthew you find His kingship, symbolised by the lion. In the gospel of Mark you find His servanthood, symbolised by the ox. In Luke you find His humanity, symbolised by the face of a man. Then in John you find His deity, symbolised by the flying eagle.
Now that may well be the case, but I believe the primary interpretation of these four faces was twofold. First of all they display the glory of God - we must remember that this is a vision of the glory of God, and these four faces depict the characteristics of God. But not only do they do that, I believe they also convey to us God's sovereign glorious rule over all of His creation. Think of a man, the face of a man, speaking of God's intelligence - man is the highest of all God's creatures, and indeed God put him in charge of the whole of creation. So there you have it: God's intelligence, but at the same time God rules over all men. Then you have the strength and the boldness of a lion: God is strong, God is bold - but yet the lion is the king, as we often say, of the jungle, he's the king of beasts. So the word of God is saying that God rules over His creation: intelligent man; He also rules over all the beasts - even the king of beasthood, the lion. You go on to the ox, and you find there faithfulness and service - and yes, in the Lord Jesus you have His faithfulness, you have His servanthood in the gospel of Mark. But more than that, it shows over all creation God is also over the king of domestic animals - the ox in the field. Then you have the eagle, speaking of divinity in the heavenlies, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ who was not just a man, but who was the God-man. But you also have there the eagle, the king of the air - and the depiction is, in these four faces of the cherubim, that God is sovereign, that God in all His great characteristics is over all of His creation. God's character and God's rule.
Now, if you add them up, the four faces and the four wings make sixteen faces and sixteen wings in all. Look at verse 6, you see that each of them had four faces, each of them had four wings - that means this: that no matter where Ezekiel was standing, he could see all four faces. Have you got that? With each of them with the four separate faces, wherever he was standing as they turned and as they moved, he could see all the characteristics of God's rule. If you look at your diagram you will see that two of their wings, being extended so far they touched one another to make a square - and the other two wings they used to cover themselves, we read that in verse 11. Under their wings - you can't see it in the diagram - are the hands of a man, in other words speaking that these hands were ready to succour, to comfort God's people, to help them when they needed it, or also they were there to strike in judgement if necessary. But the point is this: all of these depictions are under the control of Him whose heart is concerned with His creation. God is over His creation - that's the message!
We read in those verses of those cherubim, that they went every one straight forward. Every one went straight forward - do you know what that means? That all of them, nothing could turn them away, nothing could turn them aside, there were undeviating principles of divine government. Have you got it? They went wherever they desired, and wherever the Spirit within them told them to go - and no-one could stop them: undeviating principles of divine government. We read that the fire that went up and down among the living creatures, and the lightning, and the bright amber flames - what does that speak of? It speaks of the Shekinah glory, the manifest presence of the glory of the God of Israel - that uncreated light that once abode over the mercy seat and between the cherubim in the holiest place of all, in the tabernacle of the wilderness, in the temple built by Solomon. That very glory that God said has departed from Judah, has now followed the children of Israel in their captivity, gone from the temple, gone from Zion, gone from Jerusalem - and now there's only one man in the whole of Judah that's seeing it in a vision of God. In other words: the glory had departed and gone back to heaven.
Then thirdly you have the wheels - verses 15 to 21. Now one thing is for sure: the wheels don't visualise today's technological society, as some prophetic teachers would say. Even one, when men started to fly in aeroplanes, he said that this was prophesied in the first chapter of Ezekiel in these wheels! That type of preaching brings prophetic ministry into ill-repute, doesn't it? But what are these wheels? Well, they're very confusing - and the passage tells us that they're not parallel to one another, in other words it's not like the rim of a bicycle wheel and the hub in the middle. They're both parallel to one another, but the wheels - as you look at your diagram - are at right angles to one another, they're crossing one another like a gyroscope top. The wheels are constantly turning - and it necessitates that if they're turning and all the animals can go in one direction or another, the living creatures, because they're faced in the four directions, they could move anywhere without changing. Do you see that?
Verse 18 tells us that those wheels were full of eyes. So there you have the rule of God over His creation, these wheels are full of eyes - in other words speaking to us of God's omniscience, that God rules in His creation, that God never changes in any way, but yet He can go where He wishes just like the cherubim. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and good. All that we read tonight speaks of the great glory of God! Now please don't miss this among all this picture and details and intricacies, don't miss that what it is saying is that God is constantly moving and working in His world. He is a powerful God, He is a glorious God, He is a God who is present in all places, He can see all things. He has a purpose for man, He has a purpose for all of creation, He has a purpose in His providence - and the world in Ezekiel's day that was full of terror and change, the message to that world was: God is in control! What a message for us today.
Fourthly we see in the vision: the firmament - verses 22 to 27. It's described as, literally, a beautiful platform - if you look at your diagram - above the wheels and the cherubim. It's a platform that contains the throne of God. In other words: God is still on the throne. 'Ezekiel, you're in Babylon, you're by the river Chebar, you know that the glory has departed, but listen: God is still on the throne! His will is still being accomplished in His world, even if you don't see it Ezekiel'. The complex movements of the cherubim and the wheels reveal how intricate God's providence is in His universe. In other words: only He can understand it, only He can control it - but the message is: there is perfect harmony, there is perfect order in everything that God does, even in the midst of apparent chaos!
In verses 26 and 27 you see an amber throne in azure blue, you see a sapphire studded throne flashing like a diamond in colour like a rainbow, you see a light that blinds and obscures. In verse 28 it is described as the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. He saw a vision of the glory of the Lord. That firmament there, a dome covering the whole of the living creatures - in other words God's divine government was over all of His creatures. In verse 26, if you look at it, it tells us that upon that throne sat the likeness of a man. Who is the man? Well I believe Paul gives us the answer to that question in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, he says: 'Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh'.
I believe this man, the likeness of a man, is the man of God's counsels - the Lord Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnate state, but yet depicted in a body, showing the intent of God: that He would be the Lamb crucified before the foundation of the world. Here the Lord Jesus sits on this throne in a place of power, a place of majesty - and now, at this very moment, now that redemption has been accomplished, the man Christ Jesus literally sits in His glorified human body on the throne of the Eternal! Amen! Isn't it wonderful to think, at this very moment, that the Lord Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament? Isn't it wonderful, as we delve into this great prophecy, to realise that the book of Ezekiel is a Christ-centred book?
Then there is the rainbow, fifthly - in verse 28 you read of it. In the storm there was a rainbow and, if you remember the book of Genesis, you read that Noah saw the rainbow after the storm - after it. In the book of Revelation you see John the apostle, and he sees a rainbow round the throne, and he saw it before the storm. But here the prophet Ezekiel sees it within the storm - and God is showing that His glory is at work in the world, He is judging the sins of His people, He is keeping His covenant - the rainbow, a depiction that God will keep His covenant with His people, yet He will keep it with a remnant in the midst of judgement! The message of the book of Revelation is that the storm may rage, the very sun may seem to be blotted out of the heavens, but the word of our God shall stand forever! He will not break His covenant, and what comes out of His lips He will keep. Oh, isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful to have your eyes lifted heavenward to see God's plan, to see that no matter what is happening to you in your life and in your circumstances God is in absolute control!
Now what is the lesson of this vision? It's important that we understand this: what is the purpose of this vision? Now, you know, you can get so taken up with all these descriptions and these little details that you can miss the whole point entirely! Because the point of the vision is that Ezekiel was overwhelmed by this sight of the glory of God! It stunned him, it prostrated him! For all the religious upbringing that he had, the theological training as a priest that he had, there was absolutely nothing that could prepare him for seeing the vision of the glory of the Living God. If we enquire too closely into the possible symbolism of the creatures and the four faces and the wheels, you know, you could miss the point! You could miss the point that the details are part of the total vision, and the totality of the vision conveys to the prophet one thing - what does it convey to him? This: an awareness of a dimension of reality and power that were totally and utterly beyond his comprehension! That is it! Something beyond him - beyond him as a theologian, beyond him - if I can say it - as a believer! If we miss that, and if we can stand up tonight and say: 'I understand this whole passage, this whole vision', we've missed the whole point of it! If you can say: 'I know how to put God into a box, and I have my doctrinal scheme, and I can comprehend the incomprehensible' - you can't!
So, that is the lesson. In exile Ezekiel sees the vision and it becomes clear to him that, yes, they have been cut off from Jerusalem; they have been cut off from the temple; they have been cut off from the visible sense of the Shekinah glory of God - but they cannot be cut off from God forever! Wasn't God's glory seen in that Shekinah, wasn't it? It was the visible manifestation of His presence among His people. That's how they knew that God was still with them - and that's why, at the dedication of Solomon's temple, you see it come down. You see it in Isaiah chapter 6, in Isaiah's vision - but there's something I want you to see between Isaiah and Ezekiel that is so different. Isaiah's vision was the Lord high and lifted up on a throne in the temple - do you see it? A state, a static, stately vision of God in the temple - it is a vision befitting the symbol of God's permanent resting place, He appears to His people in their visible sight of God's presence - the temple.
Indeed that was their belief, wasn't it? That as long as they had the temple, they had God. Indeed, in Lamentations, we see that even their enemies knew that the kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. They thought that it was impenetrable, it could never be beaten - the armies of Jerusalem could never be beaten, because God - Jehovah, their God, the God of Israel was there dwelling with His people - and they saw the temple like a lucky charm! That: 'As long as we have the temple, we have God, and we can do what we like!'. Hence you have that false assurance, that false security. Hence you have a complacency of men and women running around shouting, as in Jeremiah 7: 'The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!' - it was their charm. They put more faith in the temple of the Lord than the Lord of the temple!
So when Jeremiah comes along, and when Ezekiel comes along, and says: 'The temple will be destroyed. Jerusalem will be destroyed' - it was seen as high treason. They were seen as national traitors to do such a thing. But Jeremiah pointed back into Israel's history to Samuel's youth - and you remember there the people of Israel did a similar thing, they put faith in the Ark of the Covenant - not in the God of the Ark, but in the Ark of God! You know what happened: that symbol of the presence of God, instead of being the reality of His presence, was taken - Shiloh was destroyed, and the Ark was taken into exile. We read in 1 Samuel 4:22, literally: 'Glory has gone into exile from Israel: for the ark of God has been captured'.
Now, what is the point of this vision? This is the point: there are two things that really are all you need to see in this vision - first of all: motion. There is a movement. In other words: God is moving in His world. The wheels are moving, the cherubim are moving - everything is moving - the light is moving, the sounds are moving. God is moving and working in His world - but here's the thing: the Shekinah glory of God is moving from Jerusalem, and moving back to heaven! That brings the second thing - it's judgement. That's what it speaks of: judgement.
There's so much akin to the book of Genesis in this vision, because you have a strong wind - and you remember, after the flood, that there was a strong wind came to dry up the waters. You have the Spirit - the ruach - the wind of God breathing over the waters, you have that in this passage of Scripture. If you think of the backdrop of this vision as being the book of Genesis, you find something here - I believe the Spirit of God is reminding the people of God of the creation story! You see man, you see the ox, you see the lion, you see the bird - God is saying He's ruling over all of His creation, He's reminding them of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. Do you know what He's saying? 'My people, I want you to compare your own experience of exile with Adam and Eve's banishment from the Garden of Eden. You were put out, and there were cherubim that stood over the way of the garden to protect the way of God'.
That is the message of this vision - and there are three things that we see in it, finally, let's look at them. First of all there is a statement that the glory of God cannot be limited. You have in it the nature of God. Now, you think about this: Ezekiel was a theologian, he had been trained as a priest, he had been prepared for divine service - yet all of his theology was inadequate! Please note that! God overwhelmed him, even though this vision was less than the reality of what God was actually like - it was only the likeness of the appearance of the glory of God - yet here's the paradox of the whole thing: if we cannot understand a great deal of this vision, we have understood it! Have you got that? If we cannot understand this vision, we have understood it! Because the message of it is this: you cannot understand God.
If, as we read this passage tonight, like me you stand in awe, and think: 'How can we make head nor tail of this message?' - you do well, that's a good position to be in. This great theologian, with all his theological propositions - and sometimes our theological propositions can be as much a transgression of the second commandment of making idols as anything else! When we put God into a box, when we say: 'God cannot do this', or, 'God must do this' - apart from His divine revealed will, of course, He's always faithful to that - but when we subtract God, and suppress Him from His being to our little theological A-B-C, we commit an awesome sin!
Then you have the glory of God that could not be limited geographically. You know, they tended to confine God, didn't they? They said: 'He's in Jerusalem. He's been in Jerusalem for years, He's going to stay there. And if you say - Ezekiel and Jeremiah - that He'll not be in Jerusalem, and the temple will be broken down, that's treason! But him to death!'. We do that sometimes, don't we? We confine the experience of God to particular places, to locations, and you can't do that! You can't confine Him to a place, whether it be a church or a city or a country - and Ezekiel realised that he was actually, think of this, experiencing the presence of God in a foreign, godless land that was at enmity with God! Not only was it experiencing God's presence in an unexpected place, but if we could put it further: it seemed to expect God's presence in the unexpected!
Paul, many centuries later - and I think this is wonderful: you who are going through trials, you who are broken hearted, you're in the midst of chronic illness, you're having trouble in your family and trouble in the workplace - isn't it wonderful to know that no matter where you are, as Paul said centuries later: 'I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord'! Nothing can separate God's people from God when they have a heart toward Him!
Secondly, he said that the judgement of God cannot be avoided. You will know that a rainbow speaks of the mercy of God, as we saw last week - but you know, people think that because they see a rainbow there that that denies judgement. Of course it doesn't! You can't have a rainbow without rain. Isn't that right? In fact it denies the possibility of rain if there is no rainbow - and, indeed, without rain there couldn't be the sight of this mercy sign. What this rainbow is asserting - yes - is the faithfulness of God in the midst of overwhelming judgement, that it is Israel's only hope - and without the mercies of God they would be consumed, as Lamentations says. But the point is this: there is no escape from the judgement of God!
It's not popular to preach a message of judgement today, sure it's not? Indeed I read today of one Pastor who's one goal, he says, in his church's 'seeker services' is: 'In order that', I quote, 'in a non-threatening atmosphere the seekers share a delightful, thought-provoking hour in which they are introduced to the person of Jesus Christ'. It's very doubtful that Ezekiel would have expressed his experience with the Living God as a 'delightful, thought-provoking hour', isn't it? It was a threatening atmosphere, because it is never comfortable for sinners to fall into the hands of an angry God.
Thirdly and finally, the message was: the blessing of God cannot be taken for granted - the blessing of God cannot be taken for granted. A lady reputedly asked Abraham Lincoln, during the dark days of the Civil War in America, if he was confident that God was on their side. 'Madam', he said, 'I am less concerned whether God is on our side, than whether we are on His side'. Can I speak personally to you? No matter what our history has been, we cannot assume and take for granted the blessing of God. Our nation is filled with churches that have become memorial symbols to orthodoxy in a bygone day, and spiritual fire - but the message of this vision is, to Israel and to Judah, that God is no respecter of tradition - and still He is not! When tradition becomes merely the dead heritage of the past, do you know what He says in the book of Revelation that is so akin to this book? 'I will remove the lampstand from the midst of those who have forsaken their first love'.
How does it happen? How does it happen that a church building becomes a carpet warehouse, or a restaurant, or a Moslem mosque? How does it happen? It happens through the error of Judah! What is it? A contentment with the externalities of religion, a society that thinks it is enough to have the form of godliness while denying the power!
The encouragement and the challenge to us tonight, as we close, is this: God will achieve His purposes with or without us.
Let us pray, and wouldn't it be refreshing if, as we just bowed our heads, we considered that we come into the presence of the One who we've just read of: Father, we worship Thee and we pray that we will know more of who Thou art - and that our reaction would be that of Ezekiel's, in our lives and from our hearts, that we will fall at Thy feet, prostrate. Help us never to take Thee or Thy blessing for granted, but to realise, Lord, that if You cannot work with us that You will raise up another people, and You will work through them. Forgive us Lord, and give us grace in the days that lie ahead to do Thy will and to honour our first love. Amen.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - May 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 3
"The Preparation Of The Preacher"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 2:1-3:15 |
| 1. His CALLING 2. His EQUIPPING 3. His COMMISSION |
Now let me welcome you to our Bible reading tonight in the Iron Hall, it's great to see you all with us. Perhaps it's your first time here, we're glad to see you and we trust that the Lord blesses you as you've gathered with us round the word of God. Ezekiel, the book of Ezekiel again, and chapter 2 - please do make yourself comfortable as the temperature is still quite high, although it was a bit cooler today, make sure that you don't fall asleep tonight as we look at these portions of the word of God. We're going to take time to read chapter 2 and 3 of the book of Ezekiel, for it's important that we get the whole gist of what the Holy Spirit is revealing to us. So we begin at chapter 2 and verse 1, and remember that our subject this evening is: "The Preparation of the Preacher".
"And he", God, "said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me. And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious. But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a scroll of a book was therein; And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this scroll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that scroll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this scroll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.
"Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing. So the spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul. And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face. Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them: And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house".
I think it could be said that romance has infiltrated the church. I'm not talking about the Romeo and Juliet kind, but I'm talking about the romance of a rose-tinted perception of what it is to serve Almighty God. To serve God, for some, contains a false conception: they perhaps believe that to be a missionary is to go and serve the Lord in the sun, to be a pastor or a preacher is to serve God in the limelight - it is to have a title, other fools even believe that it's to be a respected person. But Ezekiel's call in the two chapters that we have just read shatters all possible false conceptions concerning what it is to serve the living and the true God. Fundamentally, I believe that it shakes our motivations and the reason why we serve God in the first place.
Now I have no doubt about it, as one who seeks to serve God day by day - and I'm sure that you can say this as you seek to live for Christ in your everyday life - that there is no better life, it is the best life. Indeed, as the Lord Jesus said, it is the abundant life, it is the life that truly brings the dividends that God granted in creation at the first in paradise. But I hope you will concur with me that it's far from an easy life, and it is certainly not a comfortable life. We must ask the question: what drives us to serve God? What is it that motivates us to serve the true and the living God, to preach the Gospel, to come to a fellowship like this and hopefully to contribute with the body of Christ in throwing the Gospel light into a darkened world? What is the motivation? What is the reason that we serve God? Is it to be a winner of hundreds and thousands of souls? Is it purely to have our name put down in the Christian history books as a great Bible teacher, as a pioneer missionary? Is it to set up our names in a literary standpoint, and be seen as a great Christian author and be given a great reputation as a theologian? Is the purpose of serving God even to bless God's people? Is it to be appreciated by the sheep of God's flock, to be loved by them because you feed them, because you tend them and look after them?
Whatever our service or our motives may be, if they are those things that we have just mentioned they are questionable. You heard me correctly, yes: it is questionable to be only in the service of God to see souls saved. It is questionable to be in the Lord's work purely to bless God's people and to feed the flock of God. It's not questionable in a bad sense, or an evil sense, but rather in a misguided and naive sense. Do we often sense these false expectations in our life? Do we have false expectations as we seek to serve God? Do we have a false conception of what it is to go through with God, and to follow God in everything that He has laid out in the Scriptures? What are our expectations? Do we expect to see thousands and thousands of souls brought to Christ? Do we expect always to be appreciated and to be loved?
Often, I believe, it is a false expectation that leads to frustration. That frustration can develop into depression, and for many it develops into the final conclusion, which is disillusionment with Christian service altogether. I'm sure that many of you have been in this position, where perhaps the cry of your heart is: 'No-one appreciates me any more! I'm taken for granted! People never say 'Thank you', people don't realise in this church what I do in the background. They don't see it, they don't appreciate it!'. I believe, if we analyse our hearts concerning this matter of what motivates us to serve God, we can find that even in our service for Him there is an awful depravity and at times an awful sinfulness.
I wonder if we had been called like Ezekiel was what our answer would be to it? If you look at chapter 2 and chapter 3 of this book, and imagine God calling you in this way, and then imagine you going into the interview room of a missionary society - would you admit to them that God had called you, but God had also told you that no-one would be converted through your ministry? That you were going to be a useless evangelist in terms of numbers and success? I heard a preacher say recently that he never ever had 'burnout' because he never ever expected too much of himself - I think that's being too simplistic. The question we need to ask, as we come to a passage that portrays for us the call of God in a man's, or for that matter in a woman's, life - we must ask: what is the realistic expectation of what it is to serve God? What are we in the service of God for? How do we balance not expecting too much from ourselves with attempting great things for God, and expecting great things from God? Is there a place in between where we can be satisfied that God is using us, and we have a holy discontent and thirst after God and holiness, yet at the same time we're not a contractor of what some preachers call 'Messiah complex'? In other words: we feel that we are God's chosen one, that we believe that 'God is going to use me to overthrow the world for Him'.
It surely must come down to what God, first of all, has called us to do, and secondly what then our goal should be. Our goals will be determined by what God has actually asked us to do! If we don't realise what He has asked us to do, our goals will be beyond what we can possibly reach! We need to realise what the truth is about service, and what are the misconceptions that make men and women become shattered in the service of God. I believe, in this call of Ezekiel, we can learn a great deal about what it is for God to call you and I, as believers, into His work within the church of Jesus Christ. I believe these two chapters teach that there is a balance, a balance concerning the results that we can expect. Just in case we sit on our laurels, and say: 'As long as we sow the seed, that's alright', He also brings in at the end of these passages a great responsibility upon the prophet to proclaim God's message.
So let us look at these things, the first thing that we find is Ezekiel's calling. Look at verse 1 of chapter 2: "He said unto me, Son of man". Ninety times or so in the book of Ezekiel you find this title 'Son of man'. The other prophetic book in the Old Testament you find it in is the book of Daniel, and the only other place in the Bible you find it is in the New Testament - and that is the Lord Jesus Christ calling Himself the 'Son of man', and then later in the epistles the apostles calling Him the 'Son of man' too. It was the favourite title of the Lord Jesus Christ for Himself. Around 86 times He speaks of Himself as the 'Son of man'. Not to go into this in too much depth, because we have a great deal more to look at tonight, the 'Son of man' does not simply indicate humanity. There is a conception that because Christ was called the Son of God, that that spoke of His deity - it did do so - that the 'Son of man' speaks of His humanity, that is incorrect. That is one facet of the title 'Son of man', but you find as you go to Ezekiel, Daniel, and then into the Gospels, that the 'Son of man' is always allocated in a prophetic sense.
It's allocated to Daniel and to Ezekiel and to our Lord Jesus Christ, and there's a few things that are common to each of those three individuals. The first is rejection, they were rejected by their own people for preaching this message. The second thing is humiliation. Daniel was cast into the den of lions, you will find as we go through the rest of Ezekiel that Ezekiel was subject to great humiliation for obeying the word of God - and do we even need to touch upon the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross! Love so amazing! The Immortal dies! Who can explain its great design?
'Son of man' speaks of humiliation, but it also speaks of rejection, humiliation and then exaltation. Ezekiel was humiliated, and that is always the plan of God: that you cannot have glorification before humiliation. So, by even calling Ezekiel by this name in verse 1 and right throughout this book, He is speaking to this man of the cost that he will have to pay as the prophet of God. What is he being called to? He is being called to humiliation, and if you want to serve God you need to realise that you are called to humiliation!
In verses 3 and 4 the Holy Spirit outlines for him what that humiliation will be: 'You are to be a prophet to a rebellious house'. That word 'rebellious' occurs frequently right throughout this book - Israel is called a rebellious nation. Now it's strange, because the word 'nation' - if you look at verse 3 and 4 - the word 'nation' is not the word that God usually uses for His chosen people. In fact it is the word that He often uses for the Gentiles, and the Israelites used for the Gentiles. In other words, the traditional language of election had been changed. The chosen people of God, the Israelites, are now becoming the 'un-chosen' people of God. God is no longer calling them 'My people', and if you go into chapter 3 and verse 11 - look at it, He describes them as 'the children of thy people, Ezekiel. They are thy people'. No more does He call them: 'My people, Israel'.
If you look at verse 3 of chapter 2, you will see that He calls them there 'the sons of Israel', the sons of Israel. What He is pointing out to them is the hereditary nature of their rebellion: 'Your sons, and your son's sons, and your grandsons and your great grandsons - and as far as you can go back, Israel, the sons of Israel are a people of rebellion!'. Of course, you will know that Israel was Jacob - his name was changed to 'Israel'. Jacob was that one who had the nature to wrestle with God, and God is saying: 'You're all like your great father Jacob, you are wrestling with Me, you are rebelling against Me!'.
What had happened is that Israel had sunk to a level of the heathen. When Israel sunk to the level of pagan heathenism, and the Gentile world, God called them by the name that they were portraying in their life. They had sunk to an all-time low, and they were beginning to live just like the people that were all around them. If you want to put it in our terms: the world was seen in the church, and the church was in the world. They were impudent children - it reminds me of the words of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, where He said in verse 16 and 17: 'What shall I liken this generation to? They are like children playing in the marketplace, and calling unto their fellows' - they're like spoilt children! How will we able these people? Well, God labels them as a rebellious, impudent, hardhearted people. Obstinate, stubborn, He says in verse 4.
He tells Ezekiel: 'You see when you're going as a missionary to these people? Language won't be your problem, they speak the same language as you do'. As one author put it: 'Being a Wycliffe Bible translator would have been a straightforward assignment in comparison to what Ezekiel had been called to do'. Language would not be the problem, the problem that they would have, the barrier that the man of God would have is utter rebellion against God - they would not listen! God says in chapter 3 and verse 7: 'They're not going to listen to you, Ezekiel, it's not you they're not listening to - it's Me! They don't want Me! My people don't want to listen to My word'. He is telling Ezekiel, listen: 'This is why you're going to be humiliated, because My people are a rebellious people - they don't want Me as their God!'.
Ultimately it was a refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of God - and if you want to put it into our terms today, in the church of Jesus Christ, we can apply it to ourselves as a refusal and a rebellion to admit and to recognise the lordship of the Saviour in our lives! It's an awful sin in the eyes of God, it is a serious sin because it is a sin that causes God Almighty to call His people by a name that He calls the wicked world!
Now if success was measured on the responsiveness of this congregation, we would have to say that Ezekiel would go down as one of the greatest failures in all of history. But, you see, his success was measured by another standard - verse 5 of chapter 2 - this is the standard where he would know that he had succeeded: 'They will know that a prophet has been among them'. In other words, when everything befalls this nation that Ezekiel prophesies, when it all comes upon them they will remember one solitary, simple man called Ezekiel who warned them and called them to repent.
As I was studying this it came to me that it is amazing that the hardest people to get to repent are not the wicked sinners, but God's own people. In fact God tells him in chapter 3 and verse 6: 'If I had sent you to the Gentiles, they would have repented right away. But I'm not sending you to the Gentiles'. In Matthew 11, in that same passage as I have referred to, again He says to His people who are like spoilt children: 'If I had done these mighty works in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes - even Sodom would have repented, but My people are a rebellious people, My people are stiff-necked, they are hardened!'.
Now in the light of this we must ask a question of ourselves: as we seek to preach the Gospel to a world around that is dying, how can we measure success? Is it numbers? Is it conversions, how many people have been converted in the last month or year? Is it the buildings that we erect? Is it the money that we cash in every week? Is it the talent that we have in the pews? Do we adhere to the philosophy behind the church growth movement and strategies in America - that bigger is better? Is the way we measure success how many people we have, or how many people are being converted?
Now don't misunderstand me: we ought to strive to be as fruitful as possible, and we ought not to be content at any time when folk are not being saved, or when our lives show a lack of progress at all. We ought to have a continual disposition of holy discontent! What comes to me from these passages of Scripture is the sobering reality that this poor man Ezekiel's success and faithfulness could not be measured by numbers. His primary goal was not souls! Does that not stagger us? His ministry was not souls, he was told: 'You're going to go out, and they're not going to listen to anything that you say - but listen, My Ezekiel, you have a great high calling because I want your ministry to be for one goal, and that is My eternal glory! Ezekiel, your preaching, your modelling, everything that you do will bring glory to Me. It may not bring any souls into the fold, but it will bring eternal glory to My name'.
As John Calvin, the reformer, said: 'When God wishes to move us to obey Him, He does not always promise us a happy outcome to our labour - but sometimes He wants to test our obedience to the point that He will have us be content with His command, even if people ridicule our efforts'. Now what I don't want you to do is apply reverse psychology to this, and maintain that if you're bearing no fruit that must mean that you're very faithful - that's not what the book of Ezekiel is saying. If we are not bearing fruit we need to ask questions of ourselves. But the point of this teaching within the book of Ezekiel is that we must do all that we can to save some, but at the end of the day God is the one who opens men's and women's hearts! We must give God His sovereignty! We must realise - and you've all heard about it, of people who have been led to Christ by unbelievers! In the book of Galatians Paul rejoiced that Christ was being preached in contention, because Christ was being preached. I believe the inference of that is that people were actually believing in the Gospel because of people who wanted to preach Christ to get Paul a beating in prison!
The amazing thing about our God is that He can work all things together for good. He makes even the wrath of man to praise Him! You ask yourself the question of those old pioneer missionaries that went on the frontier of the Gospel in foreign lands, and they arrived on the foreign mission field, and only days after they arrived from a gruelling journey some of them dropped dead and were buried without even speaking a word for Christ. They didn't even know the language! And the question is: was their life a waste? I'll tell you one thing: I wish I had half of their reward at the Judgement Seat. Do you know why? Because their primary desire was not just to see souls saved, but it was the glory of God - even if souls were not saved.
It may take a greater call to go and see nothing, than to see mighty things - and I believe that's why Ezekiel had to have a vision of God so uplifted, because he was going to go into a ministry that was not going to be fruitful tangibly and visibly. William Greenhill, the puritan, comments upon this saying: 'Sometimes God gives large encouragement, large promises, hope, success, providing for our infirmities - at other times a bare commission, a command, must suffice to do that which would make one's heart ache. It is His prerogative to send whom He will, and upon what service He will'.
The Navy slogan used to be: 'Join the Navy and see the world' - and in verse 6 of this chapter you see this: 'Join the prophets, be cast among prickles and thorn bushes, sit on the scorpion'. He was called to absolute humiliation, rejection and broken-heartedness. He was called to very little tangible fruit, yet the amazing thing is: this prophet Ezekiel was the exact opposite of all the rebellion that was in his people. He is the antithesis of their behaviour!
Look at chapter 2 and verse 8 - he listens to the Lord, when his people are not listening. In fact, as we go down we see that there is obedience to the word of God. When he sees the vision of God, he meets God face-to-face, he falls down - a picture of his humble submission. Chapter 1 and verse 28, he's not obstinate and rebellious in the sight of God. Then, when he's commanded to rise to his feet, chapter 2 and verse 1, he rises to his feet. You might give Ezekiel a pat on the back and say: 'You're some fellow Ezekiel! You're great doing all these things' - well, don't get that into your head, because if you look at the passage, chapter 2 and verse 2, you will see that the only reason this man is able to receive the word of God, stand up on his feet before God, humble himself before God, is because he received a infusion of the divine Spirit of God! Verse 2 of chapter 2: 'The spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me'.
As we read this passage we find that the Spirit not only raises him to his feet, but the Spirit enables him to hear the word of God. God not only hands into his hand the scroll of His word to him, but in chapter 3 and verse 2 if you look at it, God is the one who causes Ezekiel actually to eat and to swallow the scroll. The whole picture is just an out-living, a personification of the name 'Ezekiel'. What did I tell you 'Ezekiel' meant? Here we go now, can you remember? 'God strengthens' - in fact, in this chapter we could say and translate it like this: 'God hardens'. Ezekiel had to be made a hard man, and when his vision is over, and when Ezekiel's call is over, the Spirit lifts him and He sets him among the exiles back beside the river Chebar in the concentration camp. He sits there, it says, for a week absolutely motionless and stunned - and what is the point of all this? What are we to take out of this? This is the message, don't miss this: without God's power Ezekiel, literally, can do nothing. Do you see that? What a lesson! Is that not what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples? 'Without Me, ye can do nothing!'.
Now, it's right that we say that we live in a different era today - there is a different dispensation of the Spirit of God, and the role of the Holy Spirit has changed from the Old Testament times. In the Old Testament the Spirit came to specific people to accomplish specific tasks, and He could rest upon a person and then go away from him for a period of time and come back upon them again. You remember David prayed: 'Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me'. Yet throughout the Old Testament, and especially Joel chapter 2, there was a hope, there was an expectation and anticipation that one day the Holy Spirit would be poured out universally over all peoples and individuals. Isn't it wonderful to be living in that day? The Spirit at the day of Pentecost was poured upon His church, and has been poured upon all of God's people and equips all of them - what for? Why do we have the Spirit of God? For the prophetic task of God, to go out and to preach the word of God - as one author says: 'This is now the age not only of the priesthood of all believers, but of the prophethood of all believers'. Not prophesying in the sense of a charismatic way, but in the sense of heralding the word of God!
Is that not the theme of the Acts of the Apostles? The coming of the Spirit being given to the believers, what for? To witness to Judaea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world. Was that not why the Lord told them before He left: 'Don't you lift a finger because you can do nothing without the Spirit of God, but tarry ye here in Jerusalem until the promise of My Father comes, and then ye shall be given power from on high!'. Even on that day linguistics was not a problem, because the gift of tongues was there at Pentecost. But the problem today is still not linguistics, but the problem today is the same problem of Ezekiel, and that is: a rebellious, stiff-necked people that will not hear the word of God - people who are dead in their trespasses and in their sins. What people need today is not language that they can understand, but what we need in our world is new life from the hand of God! We need men and women who are touched and born-again of the Spirit!
This is so relevant to the church today, because there's a great debate going on about what is the secret to evangelism, what can we do to bring more people to Christ. Is it articulating our language? Is it becoming a better communicator? Is it to think of new methods and gimmicks to make sinners more comfortable in the church? What is the message of Ezekiel to that cry today? It is: 'No!'. If Ezekiel was with us he would say: 'What you need is to fall on your face before God, and be equipped of the Holy Ghost to do what is a supernatural task'.
So God equips him. That's our second point, in verse 1 of chapter 3 God says: 'Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this scroll, and go speak unto the house of Israel'. Here the 'Son of man' title is distinguishing, I believe it's distinguishing him from all the divine visions that he has seen, and indeed the cherubim that he sees. It's showing him, in this instance, his frail humanity and showing, as a mere mortal, that he is to take what God gives him - he needs everything. But more significantly than all that, I believe it marks him out above his contemporaries. In verse 3 of chapter 2 remember we saw that they were called 'the sons of Israel', 'rebellious', those who 'strove with God' - but Ezekiel is called the 'Son of man'. Now, in the Hebrew language, the word 'man' is 'adam' - it is, literally, the name 'Adam', the first man, Adam. Nearly all of the references that you find in the Old Testament - maybe not nearly all, but some of them - are the word 'adam'. So literally what God is saying to him is: 'Son of Adam'.
You remember that a couple weeks ago I showed you the parallels between the book of Ezekiel and the book of Genesis. Just as the first man, Adam, received the breath of God and became a living soul - through his nostrils by the 'ruach', the spirit of the living God - Ezekiel has the breath of God, the Spirit, the same word 'ruach', infused into his being. It is that that lifts him up unto his feet. It gives him new life. It enables him to obey God. Again you see this creation theme - and later, when you go to chapter 37, you see the dead bones of Israel brought back to life by what? A breath of the Spirit of God! I believe the picture here is that what will happen to the nation of Israel, chapter 37, and prophetically still to happen - is now happening personally to God's prophet. He's being made a personal illustration to his people.
Ezekiel, like Adam, becomes the founding member of a new community, what will be a new obedient and empowered people by the Spirit of God. I want you to see not only a son of Adam, not only the parallels with the first Adam - but if we miss this we miss everything: there is here a picture of the last Adam! Our Lord Jesus, who by His obedience undoes the effects of the first Adam - is that not what the New Testament teaches? Romans chapter 5: 'For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous'. Do you see the parallel? Christ is the one on whom the Spirit rested there at His baptism. He was the chosen one of God upon whom the Spirit rested in all fullness - indeed, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the one, now, who can pour out His Spirit upon the church. He is creating, day by day, an new community. He is building up His church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Christ doesn't swallow the word of God like Ezekiel, He is the word of God. He doesn't just see the glory of God, the Shekinah, He is that glory. John 1 and verse 14 they said: 'We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth'. He came to an earth that was rebellious, hardened their heart. He came to His own and they would not receive Him to preach the good news of the Gospel - and He will return one day in judgement to tread the winepress of God in His wrath.
What a glorious picture. Ezekiel here, just like Adam, he is given a test. It's a test that revolves around the idea of eating. Adam was told: 'Don't eat of that tree', but Ezekiel is told: 'You eat of that scroll'. It's the opposite, and what is happening here in the story is that there's a whole reversal of the original sin! Do you see what God is doing? He's reversing all the mess that man has made, in this son of Adam He's reversing all the consequences of sin. Ezekiel then is given that food, and it's not like the fruit of the tree that was good for food, pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom - but rather it's an old scroll that doesn't look very appetising, written on both sides with lament, mourning and woe upon it. But although it's unattractive, as Ezekiel puts it into his mouth he finds that it tastes as sweet as honey. Now, it's amazing to me as we read this that the only thing that Ezekiel does in the whole vision is eat the scroll! And even it is given to him! But this is what will equip him, this will equip him to take the unpalatable message to his fellow exiles. Like John on the Isle of Patmos in Revelation 10, who also swallowed the word of God - it was sweet to his taste, but it says of John that when it reached his stomach it was sour. Sweet to the mouth, sour to the stomach, because when we take the word of God to a dying, rebellious, hard-headed nation it is a bittersweet experience!
John the Baptist found that. The two witnesses in Revelation chapter 11 found that as well - and Paul speaks of, that to some it is an aroma of life, but to others it is an aroma of death unto death, and they will oppose it and they will destroy it and they will do all in their power to exterminate the message of the Gospel. In verse 8 and 9 He says to him: 'Give My word anyway. They're not going to receive it, but give it anyway and I will make your head hard'. Isn't it interesting that when you compare Ezekiel with Jeremiah, Jeremiah had a soft heart, but God's giving Ezekiel hard head. When we read the book of Jeremiah we find that there are times that Jeremiah couldn't stand up against what God called him to. In fact on one occasion we find him running to the Lord with his resignation in hand: 'I've had it, I don't want to do it any more, it's too hard!' - but God says: 'You're not going to make that mistake, I'm going to give you a hard head'. That presupposes that he must have been a bit of a soft heart, because he needed God to harden him!
He is saying to Ezekiel: 'The children of Israel are hard-headed, but I'm going to make your head even harder than theirs' - and do you know something? We need hard-headed men and women today. We need hard heads to serve God. We need people infused by the Spirit of God, like Ezekiel. Like Ezekiel we need people ingesting the word of God. What are we relying on? What is our service for? Is it purely for the glory of God? What are we serving God in? Are we relying on ourselves or are we people of the Spirit of God? How do we know? Here's how we know: the test will be our emphasis on prayer! Prayer is the sole test of whether or not you are relying on God - and whatever our emphasis on prayer in this assembly is, and in your life, that reflects how much you are relying on God.
We can be busy people, in a busy place, in a busy church - but the question is: are we filled and motivated by the Spirit of God? That's why the apostles had to get deacons to serve tables, to free them to serve the word of God in prayer. This is the way that God was equipping Ezekiel, He was putting His Spirit in him, He was giving His word to him, and He was hardening his head to face this rebellion.
Thirdly we find his commission. The temptation may be to think: 'Well, I just go out and do my duty then, do I? I just take the word of God and I just preach it. I preach the word and I don't get too emotionally involved'. Well, if you think that you're not listening to the divine call. We find that God lifted Ezekiel, set him down - he was absolutely dumbfounded, because he felt in verse 14 of chapter 3, he actually felt the anger and wrath of God. There he is, he's getting the worst of both worlds if you like: he feels God's anger and frustration at a sinful world, yet it says that now in exile he sits with the people.
That is the dilemma of the prophet. A man who is called to bear witness to God's heart, but yet a man whose passion is for the people. God's sovereignty is not a 'get-out clause' for your or my responsibility, for this is not a duty. There is a difference between duty and responsibility, because responsibility has character, and responsibility in this realm has love. God tells Ezekiel: 'You're my watchman. It's not just a matter of giving this word and going home, and saying: 'I've done my job', but you're going to be involved in this'. In fact we find Ezekiel - and, listen, he swallows the scroll and it's filled with woes and lamentings and judgements, and I believe that he was actually physically ingesting the very judgement of God himself! A man of sorrows, but a man who would be the watchman for the people and would warn them - and if he didn't warn them he would be responsible.
God finally shows Ezekiel the Shekinah again. He tells him to go into his house, to close the door, and he's not allowed to go and speak to the people - it's an amazing thing, isn't it? He's been given the message and he's not allowed to go. God tells him, listen: 'You will go when I tell you to go, and you will say what I tell you to say - and whenever you're not saying that you'll not be saying anything, because I'll make you dumb'. Isn't that a wonderful lesson? We ought to say what God says, and say no more.
Are we Spirit-filled? Are we filled with the word of God? Are we hard-headed, but are we broken-hearted? Will we go and say what God says, and say nothing more and say nothing less? The message is this, this is our responsibility, this will break out the burn-out factor: if they believe it, they believe it; and if they don't, they don't - but all the glory goes to God.
Let's bow our heads, and as you do so: whatever you do for the Lord - and I'm assuming you are doing something for the Lord, and that's maybe a big assumption - but isn't it wonderful to know that you can never lose if the glory goes to Him?
Father, we thank Thee that we are on the winning side and we are in Christ. We pray that in our service, no matter what the results may be, that it may be for Thy glory - then we will know that we will have our reward in heaven. Amen.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 4
"Signs Of Judgement"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 4:1-5:17 |
| 1. A Model of Destruction (4:1-2) 2. A Pan of Separation (4:3) 3. A Bed of Iniquity (4:4-8) 4. A Diet of Famine (4:9-17) 5. A Sword of Wrath (5:1-17) |
Now let me welcome you this evening to our Bible Reading here in the Iron Hall, it's good to see you with us especially if this is your first time with us on a Monday night. We're glad to see you and we trust that the Lord blesses us together around His word.
Ezekiel chapter 4 is our reading tonight, 4 and 5 indeed - and it would be a good exercise in the weeks that lie ahead if you could possibly read the passage that we're going to study on a Monday night, because as you've found out, I'm sure, there's a great deal of intricate detail within these chapters. It's hard to take in in one evening, so if you read whatever chapters we're dealing with - they will be announced - so that you get a head start.
Chapter 4: "Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem: And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year. Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it. And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege. Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Then said I, Ah Lord God! Behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: That they may want bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
"And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you; Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations. And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations. Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.
"A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them. Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them. Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the Lord have spoken it. When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread: So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it".
In chapters 4 and 5 we have 'Signs of Judgement'. G.K. Chesterton, in the early twentieth century, said this: 'This is the age of pacifism, but it is not the age of peace' - it is the age of pacifism, but it is not the age of peace. History testifies to that, because there have been approximately 15,000 wars, men have signed some 8,000 peace treaties - yet over a span of history, spanning five or six thousand years, we have only enjoyed as human beings, perhaps at the most, two to three hundred years of true peace. By that we see that man is not a peaceful creature, and with that backdrop we realise how futile it was for even the prophets of God to be running around this concentration camp in Babylon shouting: 'Peace! Peace!' - that these children of Judah one day would get back to Jerusalem, indeed very soon would be delivered and an army would come from Jerusalem and take them away from Babylon and set them up in all their affluence and riches again in their home.
Indeed we are reminded of the words of Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 when he says: 'For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape'. In the backdrop of all these false prophets prophesying: 'Peace, peace!', when there was no peace, here comes Ezekiel into the horizon. Now in chapters 4 and 5 he begins to use signs and acts and parables before the people to depict the judgement of God that was inevitable for them. Now, you will remember that at this time Jerusalem was not yet destroyed - yet the false prophets were still saying that it would never be destroyed - but the judgement was still up ahead, the destruction of the temple, the destruction of the whole of Jerusalem.
This ought not to have been any surprise, and indeed it was no surprise to Ezekiel, because if you cast your mind back to chapter 1, if you care to look at it, you remember the great vision of God - the vision of God's glory, the Shekinah that Ezekiel saw. You will remember that in that vision God was portrayed as the divine warrior. God is seen as ready to deliver judgement unto His people, and we can see that because He was coming out of the North - the whirlwind was coming out of the North, which was the traditional direction of Jerusalem's historical enemies. So here is God seen as coming from a place where Jerusalem's enemies usually came from, in other words He was coming against His own people, coming as the God of judgement.
In the face of this impending danger Ezekiel is appointed, you remember last week in chapter 3, as a watchman over the people of Judah. He is a watchman to warn them of the judgement that is to come, to cry out to them of the wrath that is their due, and to flee from it, repent of their sin. It is never a popular thing to be a preacher of judgement, and if you care to take a brief scanning of the history of the Old Testament as well as the New, you will see the plight of the prophets - and that will confirm it for you, how they were mistreated. We saw a little bit last week of the humiliation, specifically, of the prophet Ezekiel. To preach judgement to God's people was never a comfortable thing, and when you were called as a prophet you didn't expect everyone to love you, everyone to bow down to you, and scrape to you and respect you.
Things haven't changed much today, and perhaps that is why judgement is seldom heard within the church in the West at this very moment of history. Indeed, as one writer I was reading last evening - a book on apologetics with regard to why we believe in hell - he said this of the doctrine of hell: 'Of all the doctrines in Christianity, hell is probably the most difficult to defend, the most burdensome to believe, and the first to be abandoned'. 'Perhaps', listen again, 'the most difficult to defend, the most burdensome to believe, and the first to be abandoned'. Hence we have increasing numbers of so-called evangelicals disposing of the doctrines of judgement and of hell - why? Because it is not palatable in a postmodern tolerant society that we live in today.
That is what is happening now, but the question in the light of chapters 4 and 5 of Ezekiel is: how much more would the preaching of judgement be abandoned if we were, in reality, to act out that message as Ezekiel did? For Ezekiel was not just asked to preach a message of judgement, but he was literally asked to incarnate, to live out in the flesh, the message of God's judgement upon His people. He was asked by God, called by God, to embody this message of God's wrath.
Now that can be seen in the signs that we have before us, and on your sheet tonight. The first we have - and we'll see how this will be made clear as we go down them - the first sign of judgement is: a model of destruction, in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 4. What Ezekiel is asked by God to do is to take a tile, or what was in those days a brick, it was the writing material of Babylon - indeed archaeologists have found many of these with much writing upon them. This is the writing plate. He was asked to take one of these and, instead of writing on it, he took this 14 by 12 inch square piece of tile and was to draw the city of Jerusalem on the brick.
So you can see Ezekiel taking this brick, drawing the city of Jerusalem, and then God says to him: 'Now what else I want you to do is: I want you to put battlements, the walls around Jerusalem. I want you to put ramps' - in other words, the protection of the city around it. 'Then I want you to depict the enemy, I want you to put soldiers and I want you to make sure that they have battering rams'. So there you have the city of Jerusalem depicted on this pottery tile. There are the soldiers of Babylon round about with their battering rams. Ezekiel is told by God to take that tile and to break it, to destroy it into pieces to depict the destruction that was inevitable upon the city of Jerusalem. In other words, it doesn't matter what the false prophets teach, or what the contemporary mood of the day is, God must and God will judge sin! That's God's message through this first sign: it is inevitable! It doesn't matter what men say, it doesn't matter what theologians are pontificating, or the emotional mood of the day - if it's not popular it matters not: God is going to do it!
So, the first sign of judgement you had is the model of destruction. The second sign is: the pan of separation. If you look at verse 3 of chapter 4, you will see there that after Ezekiel depicts the city on this pottery tile he is asked to take unto him: 'an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel'. So there he is with the pottery tile that is Jerusalem, and he's asked now by God to take this iron pan, and to put it between himself and the model of the city of Jerusalem. All that God is saying here is this: 'You have been separated from Me. There is the destruction of the city, but there's much more than that, My people Israel have been separated from Me' - and with their separation it is inevitable that they will be judged. It cannot be stopped - if they are separated from the covenant God that looks after them, that seeks to care for them, destruction is inevitable.
As the tile portrays the siege of Jerusalem, this iron pan shows the hardships of divine judgement. In other words, when this destruction comes upon the city God will not be there to bail them out! They are separated from their God! The hardships of divine judgement, and the terrible suffering which the people were to go through, is absolutely inevitable.
Now what is the point of all this? It seems rather theatrical and maybe quite humorous in a way. Do you know what the point is? Ezekiel, in verse 3, is actually asked to be God himself in this dramatisation. He is asked to face against Jerusalem, and he is to be the one between whom that iron pan goes from the city. So Ezekiel, as the prophet, actually becomes the invisible aggressor of God's people. Ezekiel is standing as the Babylonians coming to break down this tile depiction, the model of Jerusalem. But it's more than that: Ezekiel is asked to be the invisible aggressor behind the visible. The visible aggressors are the Babylonians coming from the North to judge God's people, but Ezekiel is asked not only to depict the visible but to be seen as the invisible. In other words, he is to show that it is God, it is God who is judging His own people.
Ezekiel is acting out the part of the Lord. In other words, there is this separation between the Lord and His people, and there are now no channels of communication, there is no call that's able to go up for salvation and deliverance from their enemies. Even if anyone wanted to do it, even the prophet of God - the one who could, and would if he could, stand in the gap - you remember was made dumb! He wasn't allowed to plead, he wasn't allowed to intercede for God's people - all the appeals process had been exhausted! God has spoken and spoken again to His people, and they refused Him. They are rebellious, they are stiff-necked, hardhearted!
It seems, as far as you can read, that God's patience had run out. What an awful thought! The patience of the long-suffering, gracious God running out! Ezekiel is asked to visually depict this, and the prophet is told - look at verse 3 - to turn his face toward them. He's adopting the position of God, that implacable attitude toward the city: 'I've had enough! I'm facing you, I'm going to deal with you!'. The iron wall and Ezekiel's expression communicate God's absolute abandonment of the city of Jerusalem, and later in chapters 8 to 11 we're going to see how that peters out. It shows the dual agency of both human judgement and God's divine judgement upon them. What I mean is this: the human agency are the Babylonians - men who are seeming to come in and destroy the city. But what Ezekiel wants the people to see is that behind all that is happening on a human level, there is an Almighty God besieging His children! In other words, He is saying to them: 'This event will not be simply a political event in human history, this city will be under siege but it is the result of divine action. Ezekiel, I want you to make the invisible aggressor - Me - visible. I want My people to say that it is I that is judging them, that it is I that is behind the Babylonians'. All that is going on, the judgement in the city, it is God!
Now there's a great lesson for us as we look at this second sign, because we need to ask ourselves in the light of this sign: do we, as believers, see God behind the movements in our world? Indeed that was the picture that was given in the vision - you know that the vision in chapter 1 was a vision of movement, and those wheels within wheels, that picture movement, were touching the earth. In other words, God's continual movement and involvement is always in the human level. Do we recognise it? Well, one test that we could put on it is the Foot and Mouth scare that has come upon our nation recently. If we were to say that it's a judgement from God, I believe that there are even some believers that would say - whether audibly or inaudibly - 'Come on! How do you really know it's a judgement from God? I mean, is it really a judgement from God? Who are you to say that?'.
Now I know that we have to be very careful of becoming God's interpreter, and as the hymn says: 'God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain'. But at the same time we must not miss what the Israelites were missing, they were failing to see that there was a sovereign God who was behind all of the actions of humanity, there was a God who is controlling the world - and that God would reign and would rule! Indeed Amos tells us: 'Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?'. The Lord is involved in our humanity, the Lord is here within society, the Lord is moving according to His own will - and just as Ezekiel's contemporary, Daniel, said - His will is: 'to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men'. Do we recognise that? Do we see the invisible aggressor behind the visible?
There it is: the sign of a model of destruction, the sign of a pan of separation. Thirdly there is the bed of iniquity in verses 4 to 8, and at this point the sign changes because Ezekiel ceases to be the God who is judging the people, and he becomes now the victim. He takes on the role of the children of Judah. He becomes the siege victim, and because of that it's more complex to interpret it - but if you look at it for a moment you will see that Ezekiel is asked to lie on his side. He's asked to lie there for 390 days, it literally says: 'bearing the sin of the house of Israel'. Then he is asked to lie on his other side, the right side, for a further 40 days - and that 40 days were to be bearing the sin of the house of Judah, verses 4 to 6.
Now what is the difference between the house of Israel and the house of Judah? Well, there are other differences within the Scriptures, but I believe what Ezekiel is pointing to here is: the house of Israel is speaking of the covenant people of God - all of Israel, the North Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom, all of the people who were called by God and chosen, the elect nation, to follow after God and who had entered into the covenant there at Sinai. He is to lie, bearing the sins of Israel, for 390 days! God tells him: 'Those 390 days are equal to the 390 years - the history of your sin before God'. If you look back in the Old Testament history you will find, right from the building of the first temple right until now, there are 390 years of Israel's combined sin against God.
So if that is the history of the house of Israel and their sin that he had to bear on his left side for 390 days, what is the sin he had to bear of Judah on his right side for 40 days? Well, I believe that it's not speaking specifically of the kingdom of Judah, but it's speaking of the Judeans that were in this concentration camp at this particular moment. They were from Judah, they were from Jerusalem the capital, and there they are - and God is first of all saying: 'Now I want you to lie on your left side for 390 days to symbolise the 390 years of absolute sin and abomination of the whole covenant people of Israel, North and South Kingdoms. Then I want you to turn on your right-hand side, and I want you to lie there for 40 days to depict the 40 years of the sin of the remnant that have gone into Babylon'.
Now when you combine the dual significance of this phrase: 'bear their sin', we see all the iniquity in the community, and where is it being placed? Verse 4, it is being placed upon Ezekiel. All of the sin of Israel and of Judah is all combined and is all laid upon the great prophet! All their long history of accumulated sin, which consummates later in the siege of Jerusalem that Ezekiel is prophesying to come, all of this is just piled upon God's prophet! Just as Israel's ancestors were in the desert 40 years for their sin, so those exiles of Judah would be 40 years there in Babylon because of their long history of sin.
Now as you look at this, I'm sure that it's beginning to conjure up in your mind the doctrine of substitution. Is it? Do you see it? Do you see the prophet of God who is bearing the sins of Israel, bearing the sins of Judah? You could possibly look at that and say: 'Well, isn't that a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ? Isn't that showing the substitutionary nature of His death?' - No! It's not! Do you know why? Because the judgement was not averted. The judgement was going to come, and the judgement - as we read later - did come. Jerusalem was still destroyed, and the purpose of this action may appear to be substitutionary, but what it was for was to illustrate to the people the accumulation of their own sin. It wasn't effective in removing sin, it wasn't to be so - it was just to show them the awfulness of their sin! That is what the Old Testament sacrifices were about. They did not take away sin. Indeed if you go to Hebrews chapter 10 verses 3 and 4, we read there: 'But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year' - do you see that? A remembrance of sins every year. He goes on: 'For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins'. All of those sacrifices, the law of God, all of the temple ceremony, all it did - like this bearing of the sin of Israel by Ezekiel - was to remind God's people of their sin!
What a striking picture and reminder it was: the prophet of God used as an instrument to bear the sin of the people, yet the judgement was still impending. I'll tell you what it is, it's not a picture of substitution, but it's an awful striking picture of the need of a redeemer - of the need of one who could actually come, and by bearing the sins of the children of Israel actually take it away and divert it! It's wonderful, isn't it, to be children of the new covenant? It's wonderful to be at this side of Christmas, and to look back and to see one perfect spotless Lamb who was able to say to His Father: 'I have finished the work that Thou gavest Me to do'. We see Him expiring there at the cross, and saying: 'Tetelestai! It is finished!'. Ezekiel couldn't say that, but praise God we can say it. Praise Him that that judgement is averted.
But don't think it's all doom and gloom for the children of Israel, because there is a glimmer of hope within it. If you combine the 390 with the 40, that whole time that Ezekiel was to lie on his side for those sins, you get 430 - and 430 parallels with the years that the children of Israel spent in sojourn in Egypt. Now that might seem awful, but the parallel that God is saying here is: 'I'm going to judge you, and the combined judgement for Israel and Judah together are going to make 430 - that's the same that you spent in Egypt', but there is a light of hope! Because when a man who really knew the word of God heard that, he would've realised that God was saying: 'You're going to go through an awful judgement, but at the end of it there's going to be a new Exodus!'. Oh, it's going to be a long tunnel, but at the end of it you're going to get out - there's going to be a new entry into the land. If you read Ezra chapter 1 you will find that the Jews again are back into Jerusalem. The message - although it is primarily doom and gloom for the people, and it wouldn't be deliverance for this particular generation - but there would be a day when God's abandonment would lift from the people, it would not be forever, and that rainbow that we saw in the first vision in chapter 1 would become a reality through all of the clouds of judgement.
There's a model of destruction, a pan of separation, a bed of iniquity - and then we find, perhaps, one of the most gruesome of these signs of judgement: a diet of famine, chapter 4 and verses 9 to 17. Additional punishments were to come to Jerusalem, that is what God was saying - and it is a sign of defiled bread. It's perhaps difficult for us to even read of this, let alone a priest who never was to eat anything that was defiled or unclean, to even go through with this sign. But here we find, in verse 14, that the sign was to depict what the people were to experience after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. It was a diet of famine. Despite the promises of the false prophets, the city and the people were going to be lost, and these various signs described the horrors that they were to experience after that event.
So Ezekiel is asked to depict it, and continuing to lie down on his side he is to live on siege rations. He was asked to eat food which was a near-starvation diet, a mere 8 ounces per day, of unpalatable mixture of grains and legumes - and legumes are just like the pods for peas. You can imagine eating that mixed up with grain into a kind of porridge and then baked. Starvation diet! He was only allowed two-thirds of a quart of water to drink day by day. What God was showing was the scarcity that there would be after the judgement had fallen on Jerusalem - there wouldn't be even one particular kind of grain to make a loaf of bread from. Indeed in the third century AD it was said that somebody actually made up a cake like this, and tried out an experiment - and even the dog wouldn't eat Ezekiel's bread. That's how horrible it was, and not only were the rations small and unappetising, but this priest of God who was never to touch or eat anything unclean was actually asked by God to cook this bread over the dung of a man! After cooking it over human excrement, this man Ezekiel would be deemed ceremonially unclean.
He cried to God and he protested, and from his protest God said: 'Well, do it with animal dung' - which is done today in some parts of the world, India and Africa. But what God was wanting to depict to the people is: 'This famine is coming to you because of another famine. This famine is coming because of a famine of the word of God, because My people are defiled, because My people are ceremonially unclean'. We are meant to be turned off by this whole escapade. As we read this, and God tells him to cook his bread - and look at the bread! - he's asked to cook it over human dung, we're meant to feel nauseated! Why? God is trying to communicate to His people the awful sinfulness of sin! It is disgusting! It does turn us to nausea, because I believe that is the disposition of the Almighty with His people's sin. It makes Him sick! In fact, when you go into the book of Leviticus, Israel is told there that if they defile the land with their sin that the land would spew them out. We are not children of the land, our citizenship is in heaven, yet that promise is still there for us - to the church of Laodicea. If we become lukewarm, if we become defiled in our sin, the Lord will spew us out! Do you see it? A diet of famine.
Then you have, fifthly, a sword of wrath. The fifth and final that you find in all of chapter 5 verses 1 to 17. In verses 1 to 3 you find what's very unusual - to find a priest shaving off all of his hair. Ezekiel seems to be doing everything that a priest ought not to do! In fact we find in 2 Samuel 10 and verse 4 that it was a shame for a priest to shave his head, because we read there that: 'Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off one half of their beards', and it was an awful shame to the house of David. I believe that the people, as they watched Ezekiel shave all the hair off his head and his beard, they would have all gathered round to see this spectacle as he acts out the imagery of what God was going to do to His people. He's acting out the imagery that you find in Isaiah 7 and verse 20 where God says: 'I am going to hire a razor. I'm not going to use my own'. In other words: 'I'm going to borrow someone else to do this job' - and here God is, borrowing the Babylonians to take judgement upon His own people. He is hiring the razor.
Here is the prophet, he shaves all this hair off his face - and then what he does is: he takes a set of scales and he carefully divides the hair, it says, into three parts. Do you know what that is saying? That this is not done haphazardly, that God never judges the world or never judges His people haphazardly, but it is done meticulously - it is all measured and meted out. In verse 12 you find that one-third of that hair he took and he burned it inside the city, and he was depicting how there'll be one-third of the children of Judah that would be destroyed, burnt in the city in the siege. Then we read that he takes a second third of hair and he moves outside the city, and he throws up in the air and he smites it with a sword - he cuts it into pieces - and he is telling that the second third of the group of people would be those outside the city who would be killed later in exile. Then the last third of the hair, he lifts it up and he throws it into the wind and he let it go to the four corners of the earth. He is saying that there is a group of people, and they will go down to Egypt - and that's the group of people that took Jeremiah to Egypt eventually - but there will be another group that will be scattered all over the world.
Then you read that not only was there a bit of hair that he burnt inside the city, and there was hair that he went out of the city and cut up into bits, and there was a third part that he threw up in the air and went to the four corners of the world - but we also read that there was a little smittering of hair in his skirt. God is saying: 'There will be a remnant. There will be a people that I will take back with Me. It is a small remnant, but there will be those who eventually will come back in My skirts'. Now we don't have time to look at this, but if you go home and read chapter 5 of Ezekiel and go then to Leviticus, and read chapter 26 of Leviticus, you will find there that these are not Ezekiel's words, but it is exactly the same words that you find in Leviticus - because Leviticus is a chapter of the law where God is laying down for Israel the blessings and the cursings of the covenant. You will find within Leviticus 26 the sins that are mentioned within this chapter, and indeed the sins that Israel are guilty of here. You find that God, in Ezekiel chapter 5, is interpreting the sins of Israel as a breach of the covenant that you find in Leviticus chapter 26. Do you see it? God is saying here, through this great visual experiment and illustration: 'My people have broken My covenant'!
It shows, as He metes out this judgement, that His judgement is absolutely fair. They have broken their agreement, the people have not kept their side of the covenant, of the bargain. But you know, it's worse than that, because Israel had not only failed to live up to God's standard, but if you look at verse 7 it says there that they failed even to live up to the standards of the nations around them. Imagine that, that the nations that Israel was meant to be a light unto were looking into Israel and saying: 'Look at the way they're living! They can't do anything right!'. Because of that God's people, who would be a light to the nations, their light was being put out by God!
What a testimony to the utter failure of all those men and women born into Adam from the very beginning. But what a testimony - I think this is wonderful - that even though there has never been a people, even God's people, throughout all time who has been able to keep His covenant in Leviticus 26, there was one man, the last Adam, who came and perfectly and absolutely fulfilled the covenant of Jehovah - and we, because He takes the curse, we get into the blessing! Oh, isn't it wonderful? He takes our curse, He gives us the blessing. The sword of God's wrath descends upon Him. His holy soul is burnt with judgement for us. As Paul says to the Thessalonians: 'For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him'. Hallelujah for a wonderful Saviour!
Now there are questions that come out of this passage that I think we have to deal with tonight, because of the age in which we live. It answers a little to what we introduced this subject with, the preaching of the Gospel and how we preach a message of judgement to a day and age in which we live. These actions are very odd to us today, and you can imagine how odd they were for Ezekiel's own people - they were equally as odd. But you have to remember that this was a man who swallowed the word of God! Remember, last week? He swallowed it, and that means that because he swallowed it the word of God was taking flesh before their eyes.
So how do we communicate the message of God today? Do we use visual aids like Ezekiel? How do we portray to a lost and a judged world that God is going to come and judge them if He does not save them? In the past preachers seemed to be happy with words and word pictures, and they seemed to be able to show the great wrath of God and depict it in an awful way. But that's not the age in which we live. We live in an age that is increasing in technology, it's a visual age. It has the impact of television, of videos, and we have been transformed from a generation that used to be word-centred to a generation that is now image-centred. So now you have churches that are now bringing in drama and all sorts of things to, as they see it, effectively describe and depict the message of God.
I remember, a few years back, taking a weekend youth mission - and I didn't know about this before I took it, and the first night I was asked to preach for 15 minutes. I thought that was a little bit strange, they obviously didn't know me! But 15 minutes - and when I got there, there was a drama group - and one hour later, after the meeting started, I then was allowed to preach for 15 minutes - after they had acted out for one hour! I went up to one of the actors afterwards and asked what his authority was for such a display, and guess what book he pointed to? Ezekiel. Now we must deal with this, because the church is being riddled with all this dramatisation. We must see here, and this I think is the fundamental thing, it may seem legitimate at a first glance to say that this is a way to communicate the Gospel because Ezekiel did it in his day - but that misses the whole point! The point of what Ezekiel did was that it was authorised by the divine being. God had told him to do it, God had given authority for him to carry out this dramatisation. As he was carrying it out, he was functioning as the divine word made visible and made sure. In other words, the message of Ezekiel took over the messenger - it was dominating his life.
That is the first principle when we communicate the Gospel, and it is this: we must seek in our methods, and in our communication, that we use that which is ordained of God. We read in the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 1:21: 'For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe'. Now the real fulfilment of what Ezekiel was doing in all of his dramatisation acts is not that we do the same, but the whole point of it is what it actually pointed to - and we then ask the question: how does God now communicate His love and His judgement to a lost and dying world? What is His ultimate dramatic act now? What is it? Just as the word became flesh in Ezekiel, the word has become flesh in Christ. That is our message, that is our dramatisation: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth'. What Christ did is real, hallelujah! What Ezekiel did was a depiction, was pointing forward, but our Lord Jesus lived, He died, and the greatest sign act of all was that He died taking our sins - but, praise God, taking them away!
Just as Jerusalem was once abandoned by God because of their sin, our Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless one, was abandoned on Golgotha's hill by God that we might go free. The difference between what Ezekiel does and what we do is: our sins are gone! We aren't to depict anything, we aren't to act anything, we are to tell what has happened! What is done! We are called to act out our message like Ezekiel's - and this is the greatest challenge of all: if you want to dramatise the message of God, do you know what you are asked to do? You are asked to dramatise what Christ did for you, what did He say? 'Take up your cross daily, and follow Me'.
Do you know what we need today? We don't need new methods, we don't need new gimmicks - and let's ask the question: with all the gimmicks that they've brought into the church of Jesus Christ, has it brought a great awakening? No, if anything there's more reproach in the eyes of the world - and I believe the devil's laughing at us! What we need is men filled with the Holy Ghost, willing to be fools for Christ and willing to dramatise in their own life the message I bear in my body: the dying of the Lord Jesus! Oh, my friends, God's chosen method is still incarnation - the life of God in us. My question to you as we close is this: are we, like Ezekiel, acting out the message of God, living out the message of God - not dead orthodoxy, that's dramatisation and acting - the real thing, the Living God living in me? For if we were doing that, I think we would find a great awakening.
Our Father, we thank Thee that Thy plan of salvation is the divine life within the human. Lord, the apostle John told us that no man has seen God at any time, but he also goes on to tell us that the way God will be seen today is in the lives of His children when they love one another, when they lay down their life for the brethren, and when they have a heart broken for the lost to win them to Christ. Lord, help us - like Ezekiel, but we do it in a more superior sense - to live out the message of Christ in us, the hope of glory. Amen.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 5
"The End Is Here!"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 6:1-7:27 |
| 1. The Reason for Judgement (6:1-7; 11-14) 2. The Remnant of Judgement (6:8-10) 3. The Arrival of Judgement (7:1-27) |
We'll be looking tonight at Ezekiel 6 and 7, God willing, if time permits us. I hope you read these verses before you came, because if you haven't you might be in a bit of trouble. Ezekiel chapters 6 and 7.
Verse 1: "And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying", and that phrase has been repeated continually, in fact Ezekiel is unique in the sense that the word of the Lord has come to him more than any prophet - as far as I can understand - within the Scriptures. He receives so many revelations, and so many messages from God. "Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord". Please underline that every time you see it within the book of Ezekiel. "Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries. And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot", speaking to Ezekiel, "and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them. Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols. So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the Lord.
"Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come" - now please, if you mark your Bible, underline that as well, you'll see it repeated through this chapter - "An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land". Again: "Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth. Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them. The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life. They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof. The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him. But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity. As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein: therefore have I set it far from them. And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it. My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it". Now He speaks to Ezekiel and ask him to do one of his many sign acts. He tells him, Ezekiel: "Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled. Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord".
I don't know whether you heard this week, but insurance premiums have gone up in price. I'm sure you have heard that, much to your pain. I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 during the week, where they were discussing this. They were debating about the fact that the insurance premiums have risen purely because so many people are claiming compensation. They went into a philosophical debate about why this is so in our century: so many people are claiming compensation, and they indeed christened us a 'Compensation Society'. In other words, if you have an accident - whether you have whiplash or not - you claim for whiplash, because you know that you probably will get the money for it. They, in their secular discussion, were able to come to the conclusion that the reason why we're a 'Compensation Society' is due to our fondness of attributing blame to others. When we have accidents it's never to do with our stupidity, or our clumsiness. Someone else is to blame. If we crack our toe go on the footpath, it's the Council.
That mentality is filtering into society, and no-one any more seems to want to take true blame. Indeed, as we look around us and even look at the television this evening at the news, we see that justice once again has been castrated. It seems that there is no justice any longer in the courts of our land. Right and wrong are hard to tell apart nowadays, and I would say that they've almost become legally indistinguishable. We look at our own land and the politics, and what has gone on in the last few years since the Good Friday Agreement, and we see now today that terrorists are compensated more than the victims of terror.
We could almost cry with the Psalmist in 73 and verse 12, where he in his day was looking around and seeing all these injustices. A society that was not willing to take blame, but blamed those who were right and acquitted those who were wrong. He cried out: 'Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches'. The ungodly prosper, the evil are the ones who are rich. Well, the message of these two chapters we have read together this evening - and it was necessary to read both chapters, they go together. There are so many details in it, but listen, the one theme that must surely have come across to your mind is this: men and women may get away with their wickedness here and now in this dispensation, but this message of God is, 'You can run, but you cannot hide!'. Judgement is coming! The judgement of God is inevitable, and because of the hotchpotch of a lack of blame within our society, a lack of accountability, a lack of absolutism whereby we know what is right and wrong - whether morally or legally - the judgement of God will be an even greater shock because men think they have evaded it.
I don't know whether you have ever pondered the link between the dilution of the judicial system in our age today, and the denial of the doctrines of judgement. Have you ever set them beside one another? How a father convicted of sexually abusing his daughter can get three years jail? Then you measure that beside the theological concept of judgement for sin, and what you find - I believe - if you look at it, is that the lack of justice within our society is infiltrating into the minds of men and women so that they believe that there will never be consequences for their sin. If you can get away with crime - in other words, in your realm of reality, life, day by day living, if that is a place where men and women can get away with murder, heinous crimes, rape, that breeds within your mind and within your soul ultimately a confidence that it will always be so.
What happens is: the minimalisation of guilt becomes the cause of horror when men and women realise that there is a day coming when they will be judged severely. Do you see the parallel? Do you see the link that there is? Do you see why men and women don't want to believe in hell? Do you see why, in our society, theologians are diluting the concept of the judgement of God? And when you read chapters like Ezekiel 6 and 7 you wonder how they can do it! The graphic language that God is an angry God, and that God is declaring - as our title tells us - that 'the end is here!', that He will come in judgement. That does not only apply to the law of our land, but it applies - as we have said - to the laws of God. When you conclude, think about this for a moment, when you conclude that God is a God of love, just a God of love who will never ever punish you, who certainly won't send you to the lake of fire for all eternity, what happens is there is a process within you that you allow yourself the liberty of changing truth.
You see, if you don't believe there'll be any consequences for changing truth, why wouldn't you change it? If you don't believe in a hell, why would you ever contemplate an angry God? What happens is: when you don't believe there are consequences for your actions, you can then change truth - and when you change truth you begin to misrepresent God, and when you start to misrepresent God you get a new god, and when you get a new god you commit the sin of idolatry.
Don't always think that we're cocooned in the church, and are not affected by the world around us - because we are. Theologians, Bible teachers, are affected by society's values that prevail - and when you have a liberal society you will have a liberal church. The most serious sin that I can see within the Scriptures is the rebellion of idolatry in the eyes of an Almighty and a Sovereign Living God, for it is a serious thing to misrepresent the character of God. That is what idolatry is! To misrepresent the Almighty, and that is the sin that Israel was guilty of here - and God's message is: 'That sin just can't disappear! That sin must be judged and, Israel, that judgement is inevitable!'.
So we have the reason, first of all, for the judgement. We see it in verse 2 where He says to Ezekiel: 'Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel', and then in verse 3 you have, 'Ye mountains of Israel'. It's as if Ezekiel is turning and speaking to the mountains, that's exactly what he's doing. Now why is he speaking to mountains? Well, you remember in chapters 4 and 5 where Ezekiel was given the signs of judgement, those signs of judgement were specifically for the city of Jerusalem. But now the judgement, the borders, the horizon of this judgement, are being broadened. God is saying: 'I'm not just going to judge Jerusalem, but I'm going to judge the whole nation of Israel, north and south'.
But it means more than that, because for the Jew the concept of the mountains of Israel, if you like, was the home territory of God. Now I don't want to pull it down to our levels, but if I can illustrate it as His home territory, His home playing ground. The mountains were especially God's place, in fact the Lord refers to the mountains of Israel Himself as: 'My mountains'. God dwelt there in a special way, and even when the people of Israel were away in exile they were still God's mountains. As we read the word of God, even when Israel was taken captive by a foreign force - whether it be the Babylonians or another empire - the mountains of God still remained His home territory.
Now when you get that in your mind you begin to realise the seriousness of this sin, because God is directing His judgement towards His own home territory. In other words He is saying: 'Do you see this sin of idolatry? Do you see this sin of misrepresenting God? Well, if you like, you are bringing that sin right to My door step!'. The sin of idolatry had entered in, right into the very home territory of God Himself.
There's a third reason why Ezekiel addresses the mountains, and that is because in the hill countries of Palestine that is where there were located, in little spots, the high places of worship. If you look at verse 3 you see it mentioned there: 'and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys...I will destroy your high places'. Those high places were little coves, little groves, and there would have been a stone platform on which there would be an altar to the foreign god - Baal or Asherah - and there would be other cultic practices, and objects, and gods, and various other statues that people would worship and bow down to. They were constructed, and sometimes there were little buildings or, if you like, little chapels. There were idols housed within them, they lived there and men and women worshipped them there.
As you read the Old Testament you will find that, prior to the building of the temple in Jerusalem, the Lord allowed that God should be worshipped in those vacated high places of another god. Before there was any place, as long as the men and women of Israel were worshipping the true and the living God, God allowed them - 1 Kings 3 and 2 - to worship Himself in those high places on the hills. But as we read Old Testament history we find that, once the temple in Jerusalem was built, God told them in Deuteronomy chapter 12 that that was to be the centre place of worship - worship was not to take place anywhere else, but at the temple in Jerusalem!
As you and I know in many ways in life, and especially in religion, old paths die hard - the old habits that we have, especially when those old habits are more convenient for ourselves, and the locations are more flexible, and the rules are broader. That is exactly what happened to the children of Israel: they were allowed to use these places when there was no temple, but when the temple came and God said: 'Now you've to worship Me here, and don't worship Me there', the people said: 'Well, it's more expedient for me to worship You in these high places. It's more convenient, it's nearer my house. The rules of this God are more flexible!'.
Often the figures of Baal and Asherah were erected once again in those high hills, and again the ritualistic sexual practises took place above every high hill, and under every green tree as they worshipped the fertility gods. One by one, year by year, this pagan religion began once again to infiltrate into God's Judaism. If you turn to 2 Kings - you don't need to do it now - 2 Kings 23, you'll find there that even those ministering at the high places in King Josiah's day were not just pagan priests of Baal and Asherah, but the very priests of Jehovah, God's priests, were standing there worshipping and offering sacrifices to another god!
All of that religious behaviour can be summed up in a word that is extremely relevant and contemporary for us today, the word 'syncretism'. What syncretism is is when you combine the truth of God with false religion, you get a syncretistic faith. The distinctions of the true and living God were being blurred. Israel's distinctiveness as the people of God, and as a shining light among the nations, and as having the only way to God, was being diluted. You can see this if you read through the books of Kings and Chronicles, you can see that it was the primary concern of the writers of those books - that the kings, one after another, failed in wiping this old religion of Baal worship out. God continually told them: 'Knock down those altars, knock down those high hills and worshipping places of the god of Baal'. But time after time there was this repeated failure of reigning monarchs to suppress the high places, in both the Northern and the Southern kingdoms. As we read Old Testament history we find out that the only two kings, Hezekiah and Josiah were the only two monarchs that attempted to destroy them!
We read, even, that at times this syncretism - this false mongrel of a religion - was officially encouraged! It was sanctioned, it was stamped by the kings - and some of them even worshipped those gods themselves! Some of them weren't as bad as that, they only turned a blind eye to it. Now listen, I hear people say sometimes, you know: 'See in the day and age in which we live, we've got to make the word of God relevant'. That's a lot of rubbish! You don't need to make the word of God relevant, it is relevant! If people would just take it and preach it they would find that it becomes relevant!
Can you see a more clear picture in all the world of our day than this? A day when there is religious syncretism, and pluralism, and ecumenism - there are no more absolutes any more, but as long as you're sincere and have a heart after some kind of deity out there, and as long as you're nice to one another, smile all the time, God will accept you! It doesn't matter any more what truth really is! You have the priests of Christendom standing up and worshipping other gods - some of them even standing and saying they don't even know if there is a God! You have the 'Defender of the Faith' saying he will be the 'Defender of the Faiths'. This is the kind of society that we are living in, and with the ones that are actually worshipping other gods you have the other ones who just turn a blind eye to it and let it go on, and don't even shout about it.
We see for Israel that in Leviticus 26, as we saw the parallels last week, there the covenant was laid out for God's people and they were giving the blessings and the cursings. They were blessed if they were obedient and stayed with God, and if they were disobedient they were cursed. You see the parallel here again, it can be heard, the curse of God because they had fallen away from the covenant, they had become a rebellious people for worshipping and following another god! There you have it, the reason for the judgement: absolute and utter idolatry.
Now listen, let's bring it into our day even more for the situation is just contemporary to us - but certainly I would say Ezekiel is not contemporary, because there's very few of them around today. Now what do I mean by that? Well, I mean that if you stood up in Parliament, or even in public, and shouted at the top of your voice what Ezekiel said, people would be absolutely astounded and turn nauseated at such ignorance and arrogance! In a contemporary pluralistic society Ezekiel's words are terrible!
Now look at this, idols are mentioned through chapter 6 consecutively. Do you see the word in the Hebrew that Ezekiel uses? It's a favourite word of his - because he uses it right through the passage - for idols, do you know what it actually means? It's a bit like what Paul does, he makes up words when he can't think of a word to describe what he's meaning. What Ezekiel does is he takes two words and makes an artificial one. The first word is the word 'to roll', the second word is for 'a detestable object'. So he takes the Hebrew word 'to roll', and the Hebrew word for 'a detestable object' - he sticks them together, and he makes a word that means 'idol'. Do you know what the imagery is? Just think about it for a minute: a rolling object that defiles. You don't need to think too long, he is speaking of excrement. Ezekiel, in the strongest language that you can imagine, is calling these idols of Baal and Asherah pieces of dung!
But let me tell you, he does it in even cruder terms that I couldn't tell you from the pulpit tonight. For if we were to take it into our society, and try and explain what Ezekiel was saying, we couldn't say it - it's so crude! As one author said on this verse: 'Such is not the typical language of inter-faith dialogue in our culture'. Sure it's not? If you can imagine Archbishop Eams telling Cardinal Sean Daly that his idols are just pieces of dung. You can imagine what would happen [it would be] all over the papers, on Talkback, on Question Time, and everybody would be in a hue and cry - but here's Ezekiel, doesn't care, it's the truth of God!
Now the question that we have to answer here is: do we do what Ezekiel did? Now I don't mean in our scathing remarks, but I mean Ezekiel didn't just say this - some of the prophets, even Gideon, went and pulled these things down and smashed them up! Is that what we're to do? We have to be very careful, because many people have read the Old Testament and misrepresented it and misinterpreted it. Because modern nations, in other words - and this might hurt a few of you - but the nation that we live in is not God's nation. We are not in a covenant with God as a people! Therefore, because there isn't that covenant relationship between God and the United Kingdom, we must beware that we don't bring in the rules and regulations of a covenant relationship.
Now I know that in British history a lot of men did believe that we were in covenant relationship with God, but you'll not find that within the Scripture. We are not in a relationship, covenantly, with God - so to a large extent it doesn't matter what men and women do around us. But this is the inference, and this is how we must apply it to our day and age: Israel were God's covenant people, and if you want to take the parallel into our century today, in our dispensation the people of God and the people that are covenanted by the Spirit of God is the church of God. Right, we apply it. That means that if we are to do today what Ezekiel was doing then, we are to come into Christendom and into the realm of religion and we are to declare what the truth is, and we are to declare that the covenant of God has been diluted, that idols have been brought up into the church of Jesus Christ, into His covenant people.
Let me give you an example of this, because this is exactly what Paul did. Let me give you two examples in fact. In the book of Acts you have Paul in Athens, and he looks at the altar unto the unknown God, and what does he do? Does he say: 'You pagan sinners!'? The AV says: 'I perceive that you are superstitious', and indeed the Greek seems to indicate that Paul is actually saying: 'I perceive that you are religious'. It seems that Paul is almost commending them for their seeking after the God, or a god, even if he's the unknown God. So there is a people, the Greeks living in Athens, and they are not covenanted to God - they are a Gentile nation. Paul comes to them and tells them the way, the living way.
But it's different for Paul when he finds people who say they're Christians, preaching a false gospel. When he finds the people who claim to be covenanted by God, and are taking the name of Christ as their own - and he uses the harshest words possible, and he reserves them for those who are preaching: 'Anathema'! That tells me that there can be no polite dialogue with those who Paul considers under eternal condemnation. Do you see how we apply this in our day? You can look at it - we don't have time - to Galatians 1 and verse 8, and he says: 'It doesn't whether an angel from heaven come down and preach another gospel, he is accursed of God if it is not the truth!'. Go to Galatians 5 and verse 12 he says the same thing, and in Philippians 3 and verse 2 he describes anyone who came into the church, into the religious realm, and among the covenanted people of God by the Spirit, and preached another gospel - do you know what he said? 'They're dogs! Beware of dogs!'.
Now again that doesn't impact us today in our realm, because a dog was the dirtiest animal you can imagine in Palestine. It had other connotations, it was such a strong word - and in fact you could even think of words now that are related to dogs in our language that are absolutely abusive, but that is the connotation, that is the strength of it. He even talks about those who came into Galatia telling them that they needed to be circumcised and Paul said: 'I wish they were even cut off!' - and he's not talking about cut off from the people of God! He says: 'If they want to be circumcised, well why don't they go the whole way and be emasculated!'.
You can see that Paul uses the strongest language possible when it comes to those who will pervert the truth and the gospel of Almighty God. It doesn't matter whether it's a dead body that they're flying around the world for men and women to touch - that is idolatry in the sight of God and should be condemned from every Bible believing pulpit in the land! It is absolute blasphemy! Because of that God says: 'Do you know what I'm going to do?'. In verses 11 to 14, and also at the start of chapter 6, He says: 'I'm going to do a death dance. I want you to do it out for Me, Ezekiel'. You see, in these high places where they worshipped the other gods, as they would sacrifice to their gods and bring homage, they would do a ritualistic dance. As they were committing and consecrating the place to their god, they would dance around it, and sing and all the rest. But God takes this, and almost - if I could say it - in a sarcastic way, He says: 'Well, I'm going to do a dance of death! Just as you consecrate this place for your holy worship, I'm going to slay the people round, and I'm going to lay them round just the way they would dance - but they'll be corpses, and they'll lie in death, and they'll lie in blood - do you know why? I'm going to do what every monarch in Israel and Judah failed to do - I'm going to do it!'. Why? 'Because then they will know that I am the Lord'.
Do you see what a big thing it is to misrepresent and violate the character of Almighty God? That's the motive of the covenant in Leviticus, to not misrepresent the character of God - and you see, my friend, even in our own Christendom, and now sadly in evangelicalism, how our God is misrepresented as an impotent, powerless, weak grandfather who's just a God of love. It stinks to God. That is the reason for the judgement.
Then, secondly, we have the remnant of the judgement in verses 8 to 10. You see there that there is a glimmer of hope in chapter 6, because God tells Ezekiel: 'There will be some, and it will not be now Ezekiel, but in the years to come they will look back with hindsight, they will remember and have bad memories of what they did. They will remember me, they will remember their idolatrous sins, and they will have self-loathing. The sin of idolatry that they once delighted in, it will come to them and it will be the object of horror in their eyes, and terror, and conviction of their sin. Ezekiel, this is future, it's not going to happen now. It's going to take time for this to fester and germinate within their heart, but the judgement that I bring upon them, it will bring them to the realisation of what they have done!'.
Now from a theological point of view, an eschatological point of view, it tells us this: that God never ever cut off Israel finally in history, and He never ever will finally cut them off. There will always be a remnant, always be some who are faithful - but I think this is, perhaps, one of the darkest hours in the whole of Israel's history, except today. For it takes them a while until they realise, only some of them, what they have done. That quickly transpires from verses 8 to 10 talking about a hopeful remnant, right back into judgement - it's only a glimpse of hope. You find again in verses 11 to 14 a threefold judgement that you find repeated throughout the Old Testament: there is the judgement of the sword, war; there is the judgement of the famine, hunger; there is the judgement of the plague, disease - and once again it's unleashed on all of the land. In verse 11 you can read that, from house-to-house for the abominations - and that word 'Alas', literally means 'Hooray! Hooray! God is judging His people's sin!'.
Isn't that awful? This fearsome trio of sword, famine, and plague can be found in Leviticus 26 as a judgement of a violation of the covenant of God. If we had time we could go to Revelation chapter 6 and see that the four horsemen of the apocalypse - three of them are sword, famine, and plague. It is God's way of judging, and it even points in this through to a future great tribulation upon the whole of this world.
What a picture of our world today, what a picture - because Baal worship and Asherah worship is still with us. Do you know why? Because Baal was the thunder god, in other words the god of power, and the male god of fertility. Asherah was the female goddess of fertility, and we know her better from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love - so-called - 'Eros'. There you have it, and the Israelites were wandering after these gods - and do you know what they believed? That when these two gods copulated in heaven, there would be rain on the earth and the seeds would grow and there'd be fertility. They believed that the way to worship these two gods, and to help them copulate in heaven, was for men and women to commit fornication all over the world - and under every green tree, and upon every high hill, this is what God's people were doing!
My friends, if you don't see the parallels today with our world - as one writer put it: 'To put it into the contemporary vernacular, Baal and Asherah were in effect the patron saints of sex and guns and rock roll - promising to deliver a potent mixture of satisfaction to the desires for power, success, and pleasure'. Sex, power, and money - only look to Hollywood and you'll find out that those are the gods of today. Now, the church of Jesus Christ wouldn't remotely - I hope, at least the true Church - bow down to pieces of wood and stone and metal. That is beyond us, and therefore we think that we are not committing idolatry. But you know, and I know, that we can have little high places in our heart. We can have little altars to unknown, or even known, gods. Even in our lives, in our families, we can have them as a god, our career as a god, our business, our self achievement, our academia, our recognition, our doctrine - even our church, our denomination!
One writer put it: 'Our high place may be the office, where we sacrifice our relationships to win the blessing of the god of career. It may be the family room, where we consecrate our prime time to the god of entertainment. We measure our value and success by the extent to which these gods smile on us, and consider ourselves of little value when they frown on us'. At times, because of these things, we often despair within ourselves that our desires for God are not enough. You know, C. S. Lewis says that's not the case, he says: 'Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward in the Bible, and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that the Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak! We are half-hearted creatures fooling around with drink, and sex, and ambition - when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot understand what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased'.
For the believer the choice is between reward and loss, for the unbeliever the choice is between life and death. We hear today, around our world and in the church: 'It doesn't matter what you believer as long as you're sincere' - but what that is in cold language is: 'It doesn't matter what you believe about God'. If it doesn't matter what you believe about God that is idolatry, and that is a matter of life and death - and it means that it matters all the more, for God is a jealous God! God is one who will not suffer caricatures like that.
The reason for the judgement, the remnant of the judgement, and finally: the arrival of the judgement. Many think the message of the prophets continually through the word of God was this: 'Repent, for the end is near'. You know the wee man walking about: 'The end is nigh'. That's not what Ezekiel's message was, his message was: 'It's too late to repent, the end is here!'. What an awful, awful message to have to preach. The message that you find in Genesis, remember we saw the parallels between the beginning in Genesis and this book? In Genesis 6 verses 5 and 6 you have: 'And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart'.
Do you know what God says in chapter 6 and verse 9? He says: 'I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me - my heart is broken'. In other words, if we could put it in our language today, He is saying: 'This is going to hurt Me as much as it's hurting you' - it has come. For the first time in this chapter 7 - in every chapter so far there has been a glimmer of hope: the rainbow in chapter 1, the remnant in chapter 6, but if you go through this chapter you'll not find one iota of hope. Totally dark, totally gloomy, and it's in poetic form. God Himself - do you know how He refers to Himself? As 'the Lord Attacker'! Verse 9, look at it, He says: 'I am the Lord that strikes the blow, I am the Lord that striketh!'. He says over over again: 'The end is here', verse 2 of chapter 7, verse 3, verse 6, verse 7, verse 10, verse 12. He over and over again says: 'The end is come, the end is come, the end is come, the end is come!'.
God's anger is burning against His people. His wrath is kindled. Imagine the impact of this - this is God's covenant people! God who had been revealed to Abraham as Jehovah Jireh, God the Provider; been revealed to God's people as Jehovah Nissi, God my Banner - and that simply means 'God my Protector'. So here you have a people that have seen God as their provider, and God as their protector, and now God says: 'I'm Jehovah Makeh (sp?), the Lord that smites you!'. God's patience had run out with His people, and God's anger was personal. If you count how many times, even in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 7, that you read the word 'I' it's amazing. He saying: 'I'm doing it, I shortly will pour out my fury upon thee, I will judge thee. Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity'. God is saying: 'This is a personal anger, I have a personal controversy with my people. I am not an impersonal cosmic force or law, I am a personal God who is holy, and a God who is angry!', in verse 3, 'A God who has reason, just cause, to be angry - for I am recompensing you for your works!'.
The land, if you like, was ripe for judgement. Verse 10 says the rod had blossomed, and the rod speaks of Nebuchadnezzar - meaning that the time for God's rod, he was actually God's threshing instrument for the children of Israel. God took Nebuchadnezzar in His hand, verse 11 explains that violence had become a rod of wickedness - and God was using Nebuchadnezzar to discipline and to chastise His people. What is being predicted in chapters 6 and 7 is the final destruction of Jerusalem and the temple that will come in 586 BC - the final destruction of that city and the third deportation to Babylon. They cast God's law aside, they put it behind their back - so God would set His face against them, God would force them to despair at their idols, God would make them dissatisfied with their hoarding up of silver and gold. They would cast their silver and gold into the streets, and they would break down their idols. Their material possessions would mean nothing to them - look at verses 19 to 22 - they would be meaningless, they wouldn't fill their belly or their bowels, they wouldn't satisfy their hearts.
In verse 22 we see God says: 'Not only that, but I'll let them go into the very Holy of Holies, My secret place - I will let the Gentiles, the worst of pagans, walk in and defile my place'. We heard yesterday morning that they set up their ensigns, their signs of pagan religion and military prestige. He says, in verses 26 and 27, that in this judgement He will be no respecter of persons. 'The king shall mourn, and the prince', verse 26, 'the priest' - all the religious realm, all the hierarchy and the monarchy, they will all come to naught for they have left God! He told Ezekiel: 'I want you to do another sign: take chains and put them on your arms, and show these people that I'm going to chain them because they have chained themselves to their sin'.
We see God's people, Israel, still in absolute misery and distress today because of this very same thing. D.A. Carson preached on a tape about these chapters, all of judgement, do you know what he called it? 'When God Shoots to Kill' - an awful thought! But the reality is this: any nation that rejects the knowledge of God, it will lose its moral fibre, it has no means of support or protection when it falls into trouble. This is exactly what is happening - God isn't even protecting them, He is the Lord the Aggressor, the one that's smiting them. We might declare: 'O God, our help in ages past', because of the first world war and the second world war - but let me tell you this: because of what our government and church and society are doing today, if we - God help us - ever fall into another world war, God will not be with us!
There is a day of reckoning coming, and we as God people should know it. There's a day of judgement, there's a great tribulation, and there's an awful hell - and there's a judgement going on at this very moment even in people's lives for their sin, where they are receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet. You see AIDS all over the world because of sexual immorality, but there is a day coming after man shall die that there will be a judgement. Jude says: 'The Lord will come with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him'. The point is this - praise the Lord this isn't for us! - but the point to us is this: knowing the terror of the Lord we ought to persuade men! For it's not God's job to just forgive them, it's not God's job to let them in because they're sincere - because the religious world in their religion and moralism, as they live this life of unrepentance they are doing nothing less than treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of righteousness of God.
What is the message? Ezekiel 3 and 18 is the message: we are the watchmen, the watchwomen, who are to cry to a dying world: 'Flee from this wrath to come!'. That's why the apostle John, in his closing words in his epistle 1 John 5 verse 21 - do you know what he said? A very strange thing, when I was younger I couldn't work out why he threw this one in at the end: 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols'. I once heard a preacher say that in his study he had a picture, and there was one little word just written in the middle of that picture - do you know what it said? 'Eternity' - eternity.
Whether it's heaven or hell, whether it's reward or loss, God - as He gave these people the choice - gives us the choice: 'Choose you this day whom you will serve'. Sinner, will you go to hell for your sin? Child of God, will you go on empty-handed?
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 6
"A Journey Of Judgement To The House Of God"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 8:1-9:11 |
| 1. The Abomination of Temple Worship (chapter 8) a. The Image of Jealousy (verses 3-6) b. The Art of Idolatry (verses 7-12) c. The Mourning of Tammuz (verses 13-14) d. The Worshipping of the Sun (verses 15-16 2. The Administration of Divine Justice (chapter 9) a. The Lord's Servant Coming (verses 1-7) b. The Lord's Glory Departing (verse 3) c. The Lord's Mark Separating (verses 8-11) |
Ezekiel chapter 8, and we're reading chapter 8 and chapter 9 this evening. I hope you have read them before you came to the meeting. Not as long tonight, these chapters, so let's begin at verse 1 of chapter 8:
"And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations. And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.
"He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! Wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem? Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me".
Chapters 8 to 11 of Ezekiel comprise the second vision of this man of God, but in order that we deal with it we're going to look at it in two halves. We're going to look this evening at chapters 8 and 9, and then next week - God willing - at chapters 10 and 11. The date that Ezekiel received this vision is found in verse 1 of chapter 8. It says the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of Jehoiachin's exile, and if we translate that into our present day calendar it was the 18th of September 592BC. Mathematically, if you work it out with all the other dates that we have in this book, and indeed comprising the 430 day lying on his side that Ezekiel went through and the fasting of a famine food, you find that 14 months had passed since Ezekiel's first vision. The 430 days that Ezekiel was lying on his side is almost now finished.
Now, we know that Ezekiel didn't lie exactly every hour of every day for those 430 days, because he had to get up and he had to make that food that was talked about within the word of God - the food of husks and dry bread that he had to bake over the dung, and eat, as a sign of the famine that would come upon the people of Judah in later years in exile. On one of those occasions, just at the end of the 430 days of Ezekiel's signing, perhaps he was up and he was making this food - but there was a group of elders, we know, in his house and they had gathered into his home to talk to Ezekiel.
Now the word of God doesn't tell us why they were there, but I think that possibly they were there looking for a favourable word from the Lord from God's prophet. If you remember, there are false prophets running around this concentration camp in Babylon, they are telling the people: 'Peace, peace', when there is no peace - they are telling them that 'the armies of God are going to come very soon and deliver you, they're going to bring you back to Jerusalem, and they're going to take with you all your riches, all your family, all your wealth, and everything is going to be OK'.
So perhaps these men, the elders, the leaders of Judah, have come to hear a favourable word of the Lord from God's prophet. If you were to turn to Jeremiah 28 tonight, you would find that in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign the prophet Hananiah declared that within two years the Babylonian yoke would be broken. Hananiah was one of these false prophets, and I just wonder did the people in exile hear Hananiah's prophecy in Jerusalem - and now the two years were almost up, and these people listening to Hananiah's false prophecy were expecting that very soon the armies would come from Jerusalem and would deliver them, and the Babylonian yoke would be broken. They had calculated it well, as far as they were concerned the clock that had once said two years was running down to zero, and they now expected to be saved.
But what a shock they got when they got to Ezekiel's house! For the prophet had no word of comfort, but the opposite - an absolute condemnatory message from God! A message of judgement because of the people's sins, and the sins of the nation that they represented. As they are standing in Ezekiel's home, and speaking to Ezekiel and asking a request of Ezekiel, we find that the Spirit of God falls upon this man of God and he receives another vision from the Lord. What an elders meeting that proved to be! For we read that an angelic figure, that we read of in chapter 1 and verse 27 that showed Ezekiel his first vision of the chariot of God, this angelic figure comes back again. It says that it lifts Ezekiel by the hair, and transports him - in his mind, of course, it is a vision - transports him to the city of Jerusalem, and specifically to the temple of God.
That angelic figure takes Ezekiel on a journey of judgement to the house of God. The first thing that we note is the abomination of the temple worship that Ezekiel witnesses. Chapter 8 unfolds the details of what the word of God calls 'the detestable idols of vile images of Israel'. You remember in chapters 6 and 7 that we looked at last week, the condemnation and the judgement of God was upon the whole people. You remember that God told Ezekiel to face the mountains of Israel and prophesy to the mountains, and the mountains were a figure of God's home country, the border, signifying the whole of the land of Israel - Northern and Southern Kingdoms. But now it's being narrowed down in chapters 8 through to 11, and God is now specifically addressing the elders of Judah - those who are the leaders of God's people.
As this vision opens we see this glowing angelic figure corresponding to Ezekiel to tell these men who lead the children of Judah what their judgement will be. We see later, in chapter 10 - we'll see it next week - that again this angelic figure causes Ezekiel to see the glory of the Lord and the chariot of God once more. But why is this happening? Why is God showing Ezekiel this same vision again? Well, the reason is the context in which He is showing it to him. The first context in chapter 1 was in relation to the whole of the nation, the whole of the people and the people's sin. But now in chapter 10 it is specifically in relation to the sins of the elders, the leaders of Israel.
The prophet is given a tour of the temple of God. God shows him four scenes of increasing abomination and the offence that it is to God. He is shown one by one, and you see the four on your study sheet, each one becomes a greater abomination in the eyes of God - and each one brings Ezekiel and that angel nearer to the very Holy of Holies in the temple of God. So we look at the first that Ezekiel saw. The first abomination was the image of jealousy in verses 3 to 6, and here the tour begins. Ezekiel is given a vision of the idol of jealousy, and it says that it's at the North Gate of the city of Jerusalem. It seems that this idol was in the shape of a human figure, probably the Canaanite goddess Asherah that we thought about last week. Indeed in the book of Jeremiah we find that he denunciates the 'Queen of Heaven'. It's probable that the 'Queen of Heaven' that Jeremiah talks about is this specific image of the goddess Asherah that sits at the North Gate of Jerusalem. It may well be the image that Manasseh set up and erected in the temple - you remember that Manasseh did not follow the Lord, but followed Baal and the gods of the Canaanites, and he erected this idol to this goddess of fertility, Asherah, right in the very midst of the temple. When good King Josiah came he took it out of the temple, took it to the brook Kidron and burnt it. But we know from Jewish history that idol in another form reappeared, and every time men and women of Judah fell into sin this idol seemed to jump up again for their worship.
The location of the idol is, as the word of God says, at the North Gate - the outer North Gate. That was a place where guards used to stand, where men of the army used to stand and guard the city from the enemy. That seems to speak that these men, in their minds, were thinking that by setting this goddess of Asherah at the Northern gate of the city that, in some way, they would prevent attack from the enemies. Of course the message of this vision is that this woman, and this idol, will no more prevent the attack of the enemy of the Babylonians - simply because it is the Lord God that is sending them. It is the Lord God, the Jew's God, that is sending these people to come and to punish His own people - and this god, this idol of jealousy as the word of God calls it, is absolutely powerless to prevent any attack!
It's remarkable to think of the children of God even behaving in such a way, but you know that is not the strength of this statement and this vision that Ezekiel is having - but rather, the emphasis is not on the idol itself, but rather on the provocation that it causes God Almighty, the pain that it causes Him. Verse 3, look at it, it says that it provoked the Lord to jealousy! The Lord was moved with anger at this goddess that sits to guard the people of Israel from their enemies! The reason being, God says: 'I will not share my glory with another'. Now this is remarkable for us, and we must deal with this as believers - those of us who are saved in this gathering tonight, we must realise that God demands of us, God's people today, absolute and exclusive devotion. Absolute! With all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with everything that we are and have! That is what God demands, and nothing less!
You will know from the Old Testament Scriptures that time and time again the metaphor of marriage is given to symbolise the covenant relationship between Jehovah and God's people Israel. That is such a descriptive picture, isn't it? A husband who is jealous of his wife, he doesn't want his wife going around and wandering, having other loves, other affections toward other men - and God, like a jealous husband toward His people, is jealous for an exclusive affection and devotion, just like wedlock! This covenant relationship must rest upon mutual faithfulness, and you can be sure that the husband - God, Jehovah - will be faithful to His covenant, but the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures is the story of the unfaithfulness and the spiritual adultery of God's people! We must ask ourselves at the very outset - and this is such a vivid imagery, isn't it? We must ask ourselves, as God's people today, have we any idols that we are unlawfully wedded to? Is there anything in our life that we are relying on for security other than God? Are we having any illicit relationships and liaisons with things that will provoke our God to anger and to jealousy? Because He has to have our absolute, exclusive, love and affection and devotion! What an image, an image that provoked God to jealousy.
The second thing that Ezekiel sees is even worse - that's the point, everything he's going to see gets worse upon worse upon worse. Here he is led again from this image even closer to the temple itself. If you look at verses 7 to 12 you see that he's led from beside this idol of jealousy right to the very door of the inner court. In that inner court of the temple, it says that Ezekiel saw a little hole beside the door. He saw it as a way of getting in, and he started to scrape by the bricks and mortar and make the hole bigger. Eventually, as he made the hole bigger, he could see a door through the hole. He walked through the hole, and he opened the door, and when he walked through the door it says that he found a secret chamber that was full of paintings, full of murals, that were depicting all kinds of animals - probably unclean animals to the Jewish law.
Worse than that, if it wasn't enough for Ezekiel to see all this idolatrous pornographic worship all around the walls inside the temple of God, he then had his eye turned by the Spirit of God to see something even worse! Seventy elders of the house of Israel offering incense to the idols in that secret chamber! Imagine! The point is this: what was seen outside in that image of jealousy, what was done in public at a distance from the temple, has now infiltrated right into the private entrance of the temple courtyard - and they are now doing in private what they were doing outside in public. If you look at verse 11 of chapter 8: 'And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients', the elders, 'of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up'. A censer was just an offering instrument of incense to God - but these men are actually standing looking at these images on the carved wall, offering incense to these false animal gods!
As Asherah, the worship of the Canaanite goddess, was to protect the city from attack, this worship of these animal gods was expected to protect the people from demonic attack and demonic forces upon their lives. Animal worship seems to derive from the Egyptians - and the shocking contrast is this: that seventy elders of the children of Israel are standing there worshipping the gods of Egypt, and worshipping outside the temple the gods of Babylon, Asherah! It's a deep contrast, because if you go into the book of Exodus in chapter 24, you will find another seventy elders there - and do you know what God did for those seventy elders? He let them see the glory of God! Seventy elders seeing the glory of God! Later in Numbers 11 we find that those seventy elders were also endued with the same Spirit that Moses the patriarch was given. So they were able to see the glory of God, they were given the Spirit of God as Moses had been given the Spirit of God, and we see later in the Old Testament that there were seventy judges whose function was specifically to deal with all the idol worship across the land of Israel.
Seventy elders who see God, seventy elders who are endued by the Spirit of God, seventy elders who are given the responsibility to wipe out all idols from the land of God - and here Ezekiel sees seventy elders offering up incense to those gods! What was the justification for such idolatrous behaviour? We find it in verse 12, for they say, chapter 8 and verse 12: 'Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth'. 'He doesn't see us! God doesn't see what we are doing, that's why we can do this!'. These men who were once the pinnacle of what was spirituality in the whole of Judaism, are actually leading God's people into idolatry!
What is even more staggering is that Jaazaniah that you read of in verse 11, the son of Shaphan, is a descendant of the man who stood and read the book of the law for King Josiah. He is a descendant, a family member, of the one who read the book of the law - the people hearing the book of the law were moved in their spirit and started to follow God, they started to pull down all these idols and reform God's law as the law of the land again. That man, the Secretary of State in Josiah's kingdom, was in charge - in charge of godly reforms - but here is his descendant standing among these men worshipping false gods! You even find, if you go into the book of Jeremiah, that one of these men's forefathers was a defender of Jeremiah in Jerusalem. So while Ezekiel was prophesying here in captivity, and Jeremiah was prophesying back in Jerusalem, one of these men's descendants was actually guarding Jeremiah in Jerusalem! Yet this man is among these people that are secretly worshipping these idols!
Why? How can there be such a shift from godliness to absolute idolatry? 'The Lord doesn't see us! The Lord doesn't see what we're doing! The Lord God has abandoned us - we're in captivity, why should we worship the Lord? We will follow whatever gods we like, for God cannot see us!'. You might sit here tonight and say: 'That's a terrible thing, isn't it?'. You know, that's a thing we all do, for we believe that sometimes in secret - maybe we don't believe it in our head, but our heart causes us to sin in these ways. We believe that there are certain things that we do, and have committed in the dark, and we think no-one has seen us - and by thinking that we become psychological atheists! We believe that God cannot see us. We cease to believe in the attributes of God. We don't believe in His omnipresence, or His omniscience - that God is everywhere, wherever we are, that God can see whatever we are doing, whether it be sin or whether it be righteousness!
What a commentary on those words of the Lord Jesus Christ: 'Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil'. What an astounding picture - but, you know, this whole vision proves the exact opposite: that God does see them, doesn't it? God is sending a vision to Ezekiel of exactly what they are doing! What a picture to us of the wheels of the chariot that we saw in chapter 1 verse 18, those wheels in wheels that revolved and touched the earth were full of eyes - speaking of the all-seeing attribute of our God. Look at verse 6 of chapter 8, you will see God says: 'Son of man, seest thou'. Verse 12 again: 'Son of man, seest thou', again in verse 15 and verse 17 - and the Lord's response is: 'They say I don't see what they're doing, but I see absolutely everything they're doing!'. The response that God will give is in chapter 9 and verse 9, if you look at it: 'Then said he unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not' - but the Lord does see! The Lord will send a judgement upon them, and what a picture to us - if there are any here tonight and they are not converted, they are not covered by the blood of Christ, they are not saved by the grace of God and sure of their salvation in heaven - God sees you! God sees everything you've done, all the sins that you have committed in secret places that you think men have forgotten and no-one has seen - God sees! God is weighing up all those sins for a day of judgement, and God cannot forget.
The irony of the whole thing is that the incense that was burning in this secret chamber of the temple, and the old idol that was outside the gate of the city that was there to ward off the dangerous enemies, and ward off the dangerous spirits - do you know what it was actually doing? It was bringing upon the people the terror and anger of God. The thing it was there to do, it was doing the exact opposite!
There was the image of jealousy, and the art of idolatry, and then thirdly - verses 13 to 14 - there's the mourning of Tammuz. It gets worse still, for Ezekiel is brought to see the sight of these women weeping for Tammuz at the North Gate of the temple itself. With each new scene, do you see where we're going? The North Gate of the city, right to the gate of the temple, and now we're coming into the very inner court of the temple itself - and there's a group of women there weeping. By each movement of this vision you're coming closer and closer to the heart of Israel's worship. Weeping for Tammuz was a Babylonian ritual that marked the death and the resurrection, or better the return, of their god Tammuz. In other words, when autumn came and all the leaves and fruit started to die they believed that Tammuz was dying - the spirit of creation, the rhythm of nature, a fertility god. Therefore they believed that through this ritual of weeping for Tammuz that spring would come, then summer, and then there would be a harvest - so they believed that by crying for this god, that their tears would bring fruit.
The sad thing about it all is that not only were they worshipping the gods of Babylon in the image of jealousy - the goddess Asherah - and then they were worshipping the gods of Egypt, these animal gods, inside the temple itself, but here they are worshipping another god: the god of plant life. Isn't it amazing? The people of God are lamenting for a dead god, instead of worshipping the living God. They had substituted lamentation for the dead for worship for the living God. The Bible is so up-to-date! You could turn your television screen on and see these poor folk, Roman Catholic folk, running after St. Therese - touching these dead bones in the coffin, and they are lamenting the dead rather than worshipping the living God as they pray to saints! I heard today that they've even exhumed the body of Pope John! They've set him up in the Vatican, put a wax face on him, he's embalmed - and they're there touching him, they're practically worshipping him! They are lamenting the dead rather than worshipping the living God!
The mourning of Tammuz. Then, fourthly, you come to the worshipping of the sun in verses 15 to 16. This is the final supreme act of idolatry, for God has brought them from the gate, to the door of the temple, into the inner court of the temple, and now they've come into the very temple itself - and they can see there 25 men, it says that they are actually elders again, with their backs to the temple of God, facing eastward worshipping the sun. Verse 16, look at it, chapter 8: 'He brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east'. Elders of Judah worshipping the sun, and turning their back on the God of heaven - this was the ultimate abomination: turning their back on God, and worshipping the created order!
Now think about this, that's been quite technical, but let's really think about it all together - because what you have here are Egyptian gods, animal gods on the walls of the temple. You have Babylonian gods, Phoenician gods, Tammuz that these women were weeping for. You have sun worship, which is Zabian worship, and Persian worship. In other words, you have all these foreign gods, and it's depicting for Ezekiel and the elders the comprehensive nature of Jerusalem's sin. Now that's the gods that they worshipped, what about location, what about the journey that Ezekiel is taken on? Well, they're going from the very outside of the city gate right into the very inner courtyard of the temple. Their sin, their idolatry, covers the whole of the city and the whole of religious worship!
The elders were men; the women weeping, female. Seventy elders symbolic of the leadership, picturing the state of the whole people. You have men, women, boys and girls, leaders and servants - and what God is saying is: 'This incorporates the idolatry of the whole of the nation, they are assimilating for themselves the idolatry of Egypt, Babylon, Phoenicia, Zabia, all of these gods they are worshipping - they have turned their back on Me!'. They have worshipped male gods and female gods, human gods and gods of animals, they are even worshipping the planets, bowing down to the sun. Can you see this? This journey of judgement that abomination is being piled up on abomination, and eventually in verse 17 of chapter 8 God says to them: 'Is this trivial to you? Does this mean nothing to you? That this is the way the leaders of God's people are acting?'.
The inference is that it was trivial to some. It may seem foreign to us, we might say: 'We will never bow down to pieces of stone or pieces of wood'. But as one writer said: 'If you substitute their gods for football colours, a flag, a swastika, or even a pair of jeans, we find ourselves back in the seventh century BC'. Worse, they've even resorted to worshipping the stars once again in our nation. The Lord says: 'Because of all this idolatry I will now let loose my explosive anger. The axe is ready to fall'. Once they engage their final act of idolatry God says: 'I will be deaf to their cries, I will not spare. Unlike their cries to me, I'm not going to listen to them - but when I cry, I'm going to do it, I'm really going to do what works' - look at chapter 9 and verse 1. In verse 18 He is saying: 'I'm not going to listen to their cries', and in verse 1 of chapter 9 Ezekiel hears God's cry, and God's cry is the clarion cry that His judgement is coming!
We live in a pluralistic society, don't we? People say to us as evangelical fundamental Christians: 'Things are different now. We live in a multicultural society, you can't say that your God is an exclusive God, and your way is an exclusive way - the only way to God'. It's as if our exclusive faith is unique, that it's never been before. It's as if men and women have never ever lived in a multicultural society before, but we find that the people of God - especially in the Old Testament - were constantly finding themselves surrounded by other nations, surrounded by other gods, and they find themselves as pluralists! It was exactly what is going on today that evoked God's anger here: syncretism - where men said: 'I'll take a bit of this religion, a bit of that; a bit of this culture, a bit of that - and I'll make my own man-made way that suits me. I'll hedge my bets by having a bit of everything, I'll keep the gods happy no matter who they may be!'.
Do you know the problem with that? One of those gods they're trying to keep happy is a jealous God - a God who is only kept happy when He is worshipped exclusively with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Don't you get into your head that this is the Old Testament God that we're speaking about, because the Old Testament God is the New Testament God! This God is our God, that is why Paul said to the Christians in 1 Corinthians 10: 'Flee from idolatry' - God cannot have idolatry. He told them: 'You're not to partake of pagan sacrifices and profess Christ. You can't have this paganism, you can't have this syncretistic, pluralistic, multicultural religion. You must be all out for Christ, or nothing!'. He said: 'Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?'.
Our God has not changed, and our God is still angry, and it arouses His anger when He sees idolatry within the lives of His people. But if we miss this, we miss the fundamental point: God is addressing the leadership. God is holding the leadership of God's people responsible. Confucius was not a Christian believer, but he said some wise things, and one of them was this: 'If a ruler himself is upright, all will go well without orders'. Isn't that a fascinating statement? 'If a ruler himself is upright, all will go well without orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders they will not be obeyed'. We find in our land today that when the integrity of a nation's leadership is gone there is no hope for the people. When our leaders are falling all around us in moral, financial, and political scandal - what hope is there for the ordinary people? What hope is there for us when we look to royalty and see adultery, and see worship of every false god you can imagine? Worse than that, is that this applies to the church as well.
It's awful to see the abomination of temple worship in this chapter. What it leads to is the administration of divine justice in chapter 9, and you see three things that I want to outline to you in the time that we have left. God says: 'That's it, I've had enough of all this idolatry, I am coming' - and the first thing He does in verses 1 to 7 of chapter 9 is: He sends some servants. Now we know these verses off by heart: 'God is patient and long-suffering, not willing that any should perish' - isn't that wonderful, that our God is a patient God? But you know, our God is not always patient, but there comes a time when His patience runs out - and when His patience runs out it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
What God does here in chapter 9 is He summons six guards with deadly weapons. Normally these guards would have been standing at the gate of the city, but there is now an idol standing at the gate of the city. Normally these guards would be fighting against Judah's enemies, but God has called these six guards to come and destroy the people of God! One of them is dressed in white linen, and he's not armed with a deadly slaughter weapon but he's armed with a writing kit - an inkhorn. We don't know whether these figures are angelic or human, and I think there's a reason for that: because what God is saying here is: 'I am sending these men, but these men will come in the form of the Babylonians. The human agent will fulfil my divine sovereign will. These enemies are coming, but it is I that is sending them, I am sending them to punish you!'.
It's amazing when you think of this, because this scene before us is a re-enactment of the first Passover. You cast your mind back to the book of Exodus, you will find that God came against the Egyptians - but the sad thing here is: God is doing exactly the same thing, but He's coming against Judah instead of Egypt. Just as the Lord passed through Egypt in Exodus chapter 12, and just as He didn't touch those who had the mark - the destroyer couldn't touch them - these six individuals with their weapons of slaughter were to pass through the city of Jerusalem slaughtering to destruction anyone who did not bear the mark as well! Whether they be young, whether they be old, male or female - even the defenceless they were told to go through - whether they be frail or innocent, they were condemned to destruction.
It's meant to evoke into the Jewish mind the Passover. It's meant to evoke into the Jewish mind that when Joshua and Caleb went into the promised land of Canaan, and they slaughtered everyone around them of the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Jebusites - they were told to wipe them all out. This is speaking again, but the difference is that the roles are changed! It is God's people who are being slaughtered! The awful thing is that the slaughter begins in the temple with the chief idolaters, the 25 elders. In verse 6 of chapter 9 you see that they were told to go straight there to the top, straight to the ones who were bringing the idolatry in.
We read in Kings that when Queen Athaliah was dragged out of the temple and executed, that they dragged her out of the temple in order not to desecrate the temple - but God says: 'The temple has been so defiled with all your idolatry, that it's not going to defile it one more bit by killing these men right in the midst of the temple'! Do you see how contaminated God's worship had become? Now I don't know about you, but sometimes when we're reading these things, do you know what we think? 'Is that not so cruel for God to kill men, women, and children? Is it not ruthless? Is this not terrifying?' - and the answer is: yes, it is if you think in your mind that these people were innocent bystanders! But the exact opposite is true: these people had filled up wrath before God for thousands and thousands of years, they had turned their back upon God and worshipped other gods - and now they find their judgement from God!
Our problem is that we believe we're sinners, but deep down we don't really believe we're that bad. What a picture of our sin this is. We like to think of the Lord as the 'God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin' - but we forget that Moses goes on by saying that 'He will by no means clear the guilty; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation'. As one man said concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, and the judgement and the wrath that came upon them in fire and brimstone: 'The Lord waits long to be gracious, as if He knew not how to smite' - that's wonderful! Our God waits long to be gracious, as if He didn't know how to be angry - but when He smites, He smites at last as if He knew not how to pity! When God is a God of grace it's as if He has forgotten to be angry, but when God is angry it's as if He has forgotten to be gracious.
The Canaanites have been replaced by the Israelites as the objects of God's wrath. Do you know what that tells me? As believers we've got to take this seriously, because this God is our God. It means that just as God was ruthless with sin, we've got to be ruthless with sin in our lives too. Do you remember David and Goliath? Once he slew the big uncircumcised Philistine, he chopped his head off - do you know what one of the Puritans says? If it had been us, we would have given him a hair cut and it would have grown back - and we would have had to deal with it again. But as one man said to me recently, when he chopped the head off Goliath he was saying: 'This is a problem I've had but I'll not have it again'. What did the Lord say? 'If your hand offends you cut it off! If your eye offends you pluck it out!'. Our God is a God of judgement.
The Lord's servants came, and then secondly the Lord's glory departed - and we'll not take time tonight to look at this, but we can see how gradually, from the Holy of Holies, right to the threshold of the temple, right on to the Mount of Olives, and eventually away totally, the glory of God departed - the Shekinah glory, that cloud of glory, and we'll see that more in chapter 10. But the point is this: it is better to remove the false presence of false gods, than to lose the true presence of the living God. Is that not the point? Is it not better to cut out of our lives all those things, to look into ourselves and - as Paul said to the Corinthians: 'Judge ourselves that we would not be judged'? Is it not meet that we should begin judgement at the house of God before God does?
Then thirdly we see the Lord's mark separating them in verses 8 to 11, and this is amazing - because in the midst of all this carnage all that Ezekiel (and remember it's still a vision, it hasn't come to pass yet), but in the midst of all this Ezekiel sees all these people being slain and he can't see anyone being saved. He falls at the feet of the Lord and says in fear: 'Lord, have You forsaken the earth? Lord, have You forgotten to save this remnant that You promised?'. This is when this high priestly figure in the white linen garment is told by the Lord to come and to put a mark on the forehead of the remnant of those who are to be saved.
Did you know the Hebrew word 'mark' is literally the Hebrew letter 'tau' (sp?)? Do you know how it was done on ancient manuscripts? It was done with a cross - 'tau'. I don't know whether Ezekiel saw any significance in this, but I certainly can - because this man in white linen garments was asked to go and to mark with a cross upon the head of every child that was to be saved as the remnant. It reminds us of Revelation, where the 144,000 out of all the tribes of Israel are sealed on their foreheads with the name of the Father, and with the name of the Son. It's a picture of completeness - just before that great tribulation breaks upon the whole earth, the 144,000 are commissioned and chosen as the remnant, marked with the sign of this cross. Did you know in the Greek language that 'X', 'tau', a cross, is the first letter of 'Christos' - Christ? Here Ezekiel is marking this remnant, maybe unknown to him, with the first letter of our Lord Jesus Christ's title as Messiah.
The thing is that there are so few marked with this cross that Ezekiel didn't think there were any. Who was to be marked with the cross? Do you know who? He says: 'Those who sighed and cried. Those who saw the situation around in the nation and within the temple, those who recognised themselves for what they were and the nation - sighers and criers' - and that's what we need today! Men who will sigh, men who will cry! Suddenly, at the end of this chapter, this priestly figure appears again and says: 'I have done as thou hast commanded me'.
Do you know something? There's a day coming when a great tribulation greater than all that we have just read is going to break upon this whole world. Men and women are going to go about their business, they're going to take the kids to school, they're going to make their piece and go out to work, they're going to come in and have their dinner - and then a terror that this world has never seen hitherto will break upon them. Do you know what Ezekiel did? He fell at the feet of this angelic creature, and he cried for mercy upon them - and that's what we ought to do. We ought to be crying, just like the watchman Ezekiel, that God will spare, that God will save - and if we do that we will actually be fulfilling, in our lives, the mark of God upon us, as men and women who sigh and cry for what is going on in this old world.
Are we being marked? Oh, to be marked! Oh, to be marked by the hand of God as one who - when all the world is going to defilement, and sin, and degradation - is living spotless, and blameless, and has a heart after God's glory! Oh, to be marked. Isn't it wonderful that through the cross we are delivered? Isn't it? Through Christ we are not appointed unto wrath, but we escape. Hallelujah!
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 7
"Glory - Past, Absent And Future"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 10:1-11:25 |
| 1. The Glory Revisited (10:1-22) 2. The Glory Removed (10:18-22; 11:1-13; 22-25) 3. The Glory Restored (11:14-21) |
Let me welcome you to our Bible Reading tonight, it's great to see you all with us here in the Iron Hall. We trust that we'll be blessed together as we meet around God's word, in the book of Ezekiel, again this Monday night. Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11 tonight for our studies, and let's read from verse 1 of chapter 10. The subject tonight is: 'Glory - Past, Absent and Future'.
"Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubims there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne. And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory. And the sound of the cherubims' wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh. And it came to pass, that when he had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubims; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels. And one cherub stretched forth his hand from between the cherubims unto the fire that was between the cherubims, and took thereof, and put it into the hands of him that was clothed with linen: who took it, and went out. And there appeared in the cherubims the form of a man's hand under their wings. And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone. And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went. And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel. And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar". Now note that; this is the same creature that Ezekiel saw in chapter 1 of this book. "And when the cherubims went, the wheels went by them: and when the cherubims lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them. When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also: for the spirit of the living creature was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims. And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord's house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they were the cherubims. Every one had four faces apiece, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. And the likeness of their faces was the same faces which I saw by the river of Chebar, their appearances and themselves: they went every one straight forward.
"Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city: Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith the Lord; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it. Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord God. And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel: And ye shall know that I am the Lord: for ye have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you. And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord God. Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city. Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me. Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had showed me".
Don't forget, as we look at these two portions of Scripture, that they are the second half of the vision that began in chapter 8. Last week we looked at chapters 8 and 9, and I think I told you that that was only half of the vision, and we finish the vision tonight. So if you can remember all that we saw last week, this is purely a continuance of the same vision.
In the book of Jeremiah you find a cry, the cry of the people is: 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!'. The motivation of such a cry is: false security. A people who were holding on to the externals of their religion, rather than the deep spiritual relationship that they could and ought to have had with their God. Therefore, when the prophet Jeremiah judged them with his prophetic utterance from the Lord and said: 'Thus saith the Lord, there will be destruction, there will be captivity, you will be taken away to a foreign land' - the religious men and the politicians of the day, their cry was: 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!'. In other words: 'We have the temple of God for our security! What are you talking about? Telling us about judgement! Talking to us about captivity and deportation! We are God's people, we have God's temple - within it dwells the Ark of God, God's presence dwells above the Ark of God - we can see the visible presence of God! Don't tell us that God is going to judge us!'.
If God were still in His temple, what happened to Jerusalem would never have happened. If the confidence of the people of Israel was a true confidence, they would have remained in the land and their security would have been justified - but as we read this book we see very clearly that it is not justified. In fact, what this vision shows us is that because of their sin the very presence of the Lord had departed from Jerusalem! In fact, in the first chapter of this book we saw that it was by the river Chebar, in this concentration camp in Tel Abib, that this man Ezekiel saw the vision of the glory of the Lord. It wasn't in Jerusalem he saw it, he saw vision of the glory of the Lord in captivity - which was to tell him that the very presence of the Lord was no longer in the place that they expected. It was no longer in Jerusalem, but it had actually followed the people of God into captivity.
So this vision that we're looking at tonight, it is totally about the location of the presence of God. It's about where God's presence dwells. If you look at these verses you will see that the seventh figure - remember there were seven figures, six of them were clothed in army gear, if you like, and had a weapon, a weapon of destruction and slaughtering; we saw that in chapter 9. But one of them was clothed in a white garment, a white linen garment, the garment of a high priest. In his hand was not a weapon of slaughter, but there was a quill and a bottle of ink - a little writing case. He was the minister of mercy, do you remember that? If you go back to chapter 9 you will see that that man, or that angelic figure, was told to go and mark all the remnant with the cross - the Hebrew letter 'tau'. He was a minister of mercy.
But if you look at this portion of Scripture you will see that this man is called once again. What the Lord commands him to do is now not an errand of mercy, but an errand of judgement. If you look at verse 2 you will see that he was told, he was commanded, to take the burning coals from beneath the throne off the altar. He then goes and stand beside one of the wheels of the chariot throne of the glory of God, and one of the cherubim take some of the burning coals and places them within his hands. Then he is told to go over to the city of Jerusalem and to rain this fire and brimstone upon them. In other words, Jerusalem would be burned to the ground with fire from heaven.
It is reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah, isn't it? Destroyed by fire and brimstone from heaven. If you turn with me to chapter 16 of Ezekiel and verse 46 we read these words, speaking to Israel: 'Thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters'. Ezekiel, indeed God through Ezekiel, is saying that Jerusalem's youngest sister is Sodom, and that is the state of the nation of God's people now. Sodom and Gomorrah was rained down with fire and brimstone from heaven because of their abominations unto God, God's own people had got to such a peak and climax of sin that God was calling Sodom their younger sister, and He was going to rain judgement upon them as He did to Sodom.
Now this is amazing, because where do these coals come from? The cherubim takes the coals from the angelic divine chariot of the glory of God, and then he puts them into the hand of this figure in white linen. In other words, these burning coals actually come from the glory, the picture of the glory, holiness, and purity of God. When you think about that: these coals that are used to judge God's people, to destroy Jerusalem, to destroy His own covenant people, are actually His coals of purity, His coals of holiness, and coals of glory.
Now if you think about this for a moment, and cast your mind back to Isaiah chapter 6 where Isaiah says: 'In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up', and then down through the passage you find that Isaiah sees such a vision of the glory and holiness of God that he falls at the feet of God and he says: 'Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the Lord'. Then an angelic figure takes, with tongs from off the altar, a coal - touches his lips, and he is purified. So the coals of God speak of purity, they purify, they're in this vision of the holiness and the glory and the purity of God - but these are the very coals that God is going to judge His own people with!
The writer to the Hebrews says these immortal words: 'Our God is a consuming fire' - and when you think, isn't it remarkable that that flood of molten fuel of God's holiness that actually conforms us to Christ is the very same element that will cause the wicked to perish? All you need to do is think of the atonement, and think of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross - what was that cross? It was the altar of God! God's holy indignation was poured upon Him, all of His wrath from His holiness. If you turn to Psalm 22, prophetically: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' - there's the question asked on the cross by the Lord Jesus. What is the answer? Verse 3: 'Thou art holy'. It's remarkable, isn't it, that those coals of God's holiness and purity are the very things that give us life, the very things that give us purity? For as He suffered, the righteous one became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him - and there has been that transferral because of these righteous coals of God upon Him.
But the awful thing to think about in the context of Ezekiel is this: that the very judgement that was poured upon Christ at Calvary's cross, and gives us life, gives us purity and holiness, are the coals of hell that the wicked unregenerate sinner will endure for all eternity! The picture that we have in Ezekiel is that this is a foretaste of final wrath, and that is what this book has been pointing to all along. It's not just prophetic about Ezekiel's immediate history, but it pushes forward to the very end times. When we read the apostle Peter we find there that 'the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up'. It's awful, isn't it? The picture of God's holy wrath, there's nothing unjust about it, there's nothing wicked, there's nothing cruel - it is absolutely righteous because the very coals He uses to judge His own people are coals of purity and holiness.
Why does He do it? It's simple. As old Matthew Henry said: 'Those who will not come to Christ and be saved will depart from Him and be damned'. Isn't that it in black-and-white, isn't that the Gospel? Those who will not come and be saved will depart and be damned! Ezekiel gives us a unique glimpse into the mechanisms of God's divine judgement, and His history within the world. We see here the workings, the mechanics, of God in all of His justice and also in His mercy.
When physical destruction eventually comes on Jerusalem you will read later on in this book and later on in the Old Testament that it finally came by fire, and God did rain fire upon it. Nebuchadnezzar came in 586 BC and took the final deportation and burned the city to the ground. What God is saying is: 'This is the heavenly realm, this is what is going on - these Babylonians are my human instruments! It is I, the sovereign Lord in heaven, that is directing them. I am sending them to destroy and destruct my nation and my city'. These men, these Babylonians, were only the human instruments in the hands of an angry God.
You know, when we thought about that vision that he saw last week, and that idol sitting at the gate, and all the horrible abominations that he saw on the temple walls, and then he went into the very holy place and he saw the elders bowing down to the sun with their back to God - all of these abominations were to protect the people from their enemies and from demonic attack. But in the ancient near East, the thing was this: whenever a city or a country was sacked and destroyed by the enemy it was a sign to them, no matter what nation it was, that their god had either died or their god had abandoned them! So God was letting them see He had not died, but He had abandoned them.
In order that they see that Ezekiel has a re-visitation of the glory of God that he had in chapter 1 - and that's our first point. The chariot of the Lord - and, incidentally, there are some diagrams up in the porch on your way out, if you weren't here at that study you can get a picture of this chariot of the Lord which will help you understand this passage a little better. But this is the vision that he saw in chapter 1, and that is the central figure of this vision in chapters 8, 9, 10 and 11 - because the vision of the glory of the Lord is being shown now as a vision of judgement. The first time he saw it in Babylon, but now he is actually in Jerusalem - he is now seeing it in Jerusalem, departing Jerusalem.
If you read this passage you will see that on the top of the cherubim the prophet sees a throne. In verse 1 of chapter 10 you will see it first is empty, and then the divine chariot is drawn up to the south side of the temple in verse 3 - and that tells me that it is as far away as possible from all the abominations on the Northern side of the city. Remember the vision last week? Everything was in the northern side of the city: the idol was at the Northern gate - but now God's vision of His glory, this chariot, is being taken as far away as possible from the northern side, from these abominations. Then Ezekiel sees the cloud filling the inner court, and he sees once again the glory of God on the move away from God's people, just as he did before.
If you were to turn tonight - we don't have time to do it - to Exodus chapter 40, you would see there the wilderness wanderings of the people of God as they exited Egypt and were going to the promised land. There's a similar picture there of the glory of God filling the tabernacle, of the glory of God being with the people and the cloud guiding them by day and a pillar of fire by night. But as we read this passage of scripture we find that this cloud of the Shekinah glory of God departs slowly. He sees it halting, as if reluctant to leave. It's as if God doesn't want to move, it's as if God doesn't want to draw away from His people. In actual fact He isn't, He is being evicted by the people's sins and by their abominations! Isn't that an awful thought? That God's people were actually making Him redundant as their God!
It's a wonderful picture of our merciful God when you ponder for a moment that the first act of judgement against His people seems to be forced upon Him. He doesn't want to do it, He's reluctant, He halts as He moves away - what a gracious God! Do you know something that has struck me as I have studied this passage today? The presence of God was moving away, God's people were being judged - but at least when they were being judged they had God's presence with them! But now God was leaving them! God was moving away, there was going to be a total absence - and that is what causes this horror in Ezekiel's soul, when he thinks of God totally abandoning and leaving His people.
In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 6 and 8, I wonder had the writer to the Hebrews this in mind when he said: 'For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons'. Whom the Lord loves He chastens, but what an awful thing to be an unchastened child of God - in fact I don't even think that it's possible, for that is abandonment!
If you look at this portion of chapter 10 you find that first the glory passes off the earthly cherubim within the very Holy of Holies. It dwelt above the Ark of the Covenant, and it lifts upon it and hovers - and then that cloud of glory moves. If you look at verse 4 you will see that it hovers above the threshold of the temple. Then it moves from the threshold of the temple to the divine chariot that Ezekiel is seeing in his vision. In other words, it's moving from the false cherubim to the real cherubim! It's moving from the representative figure of the glory and presence of God to above the threshold of the door, and over the actual cherubim of God's glory in verse 18. From there the glory moves to the East gate of the temple courtyard in verse 19, and just there it stands and it pauses - and just as it halts above that gate there of the city of Jerusalem, Ezekiel receives a further oracle and a further vision from God.
Finally the glory moves on to the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem - totally and utterly outside the city limits. Now, do you know what that means? It means, finally, that the city of Jerusalem is effectively doomed. Because God's presence has moved away, totally outside the city, it is doomed and damned, it is cut off from God, it is abandoned of all divine aid, it is waiting for the axe to fall - their true protector God, Jehovah, has gone! The city is left empty of God, and God says to them in roundabout terms: 'If you want your idols to protect you, you can have them now - I'm gone'.
This is a terrifying passage of scripture, when we think that the glory departs in stages. You know, it doesn't just disappear. The glory just doesn't go overnight, but it's in stages - and the amazing thing is: some of those stages are closed off to the rest of the city. They can't see the glory moving from the Ark of the Covenant into the main holy place, they can't see that - but it's happening nevertheless! It's not until they see it go away from the city that they realise that God has gone!
That's what happens: it's often missed by most when the glory departs. One of the most frightening passages of scripture is Judges chapter 16 and verse 20, where it speaks of Samson. We read there that Delilah said to Samson: 'The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him'. Now, finally, 'Ichabod' could be the denominational tag of the children of Israel. How could the glory of God dwell in such a wicked place? When you think of the vision that we saw last week of all those abominations that got worse and worse as you came nearer the holy place of God's temple, it couldn't - the glory of God could not abide there! The throne of glory had to be vacated, and now it was empty, now God was not there - and now, effectively, it had become a throne of judgement by His absence.
The glory was removed because God says: 'I will not share my glory with another'. The idols and the sins of the people had driven God away, and oh that we would learn this in our Christian walk: that it is exactly the same today! When we sin we lose the glory! Without the glory of God the temple just became like another building, didn't it? It was just bricks and mortar. That's like us, for when the glory departs our lives we're just like ordinary people - we behave like ordinary people, we talk like ordinary people. It's the same with the church: when the glory departs, what are we only an organisation! The thing that makes the difference is the power and the presence of Almighty God!
Where there are two gods in the temple, one god will have to move. It's the same in the church: only one can have the preeminence. It's the same in our lives - isn't it? - our bodies who are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Whatever idol we have within our hearts must come down so that God can reign alone and have absolute authority in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. As Craigie says: 'It is better to remove the false presence than to have the true presence depart'. Is it not better to pull down the idols than to see God move out of our lives? Isn't it awful to think that sin caused God, and still causes God, to evacuate His own home?
We thought last week that this covenant relationship between God and His people is like the marriage relationship. Do you know something? God hates divorce, but here it's God leaving the home. God, if I can say it reverently, is packing the case and closing the door behind Him, and He's gone. God's presence is the most precious thing that we have. If you go through the Scriptures you will find that, you find these verses - Psalm 23: 'Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me'. You find that God is described as being with us, being around us, being in us, being in the midst of us, being underneath us, being near to us, and being before us. That is the most precious thing that we have: God dwelling with us!
That's how we measure spirituality, that's how we measure a church. I wonder: how do we measure churches today? We probably measure them by the traditions of men, or by the forms of their doctrine, or even perhaps by their numbers - and when people attend a place in droves we say: 'God must be there! There's a lot of people there! Therefore we must do what they do in order that God would be here!'. But I hope you know that God doesn't always bless tradition, and God doesn't always bless the things of the past, and neither does He always bless the places where there are crowds upon crowds. If you remember the Lord when He went to seek twelve disciples, where did He go? He didn't go to the Bible Colleges of the day, He went to the ordinary working man. When He trained them, what did He do? He didn't set them down an exam for a degree, but He took them into His presence for three solid years! That's what we need! We need His presence.
That is why Ezekiel was brought by the Spirit of God to revisit the glory of God. The second thing he saw was, as we've already mentioned, the glory removed - because all the people didn't agree. Remember there are the people in captivity in the concentration camp by the river Chebar, and there are also the people back in Jerusalem, they're still in Jerusalem - and they didn't agree. In fact, at the entrance of the East gate Ezekiel sees a group of men, chapter 11 and verse 1, in fact 25 of them. It says of them that their function, what they were doing, was giving counsel to the people - and that suggests they were elders.
Again we see 25 of the religious and political leaders of God's people at the gate. Included in their number, if you look at it, were princes of the people, leaders of the people. They are named as: Jaazaniah the son of Azur - now that's not the same Jaazaniah son of Shaphan in chapter 8 and verse 11, this is a different man - then there is Pelatiah the son of Benaiah. These are princes, leaders of the people. In other words, there must have been a small council of high officials of the King, perhaps 25 of them as seen here - and these men wielded great authority, there were even times when these men were able to influence the King and the decisions that took place in Judah.
Ezekiel is told in verse 2, if you look at, that these men are devising mischief and giving wicked counsel in the city. Now I believe that means that they were contradicting the prophetic word of God. Jeremiah was prophesying, Ezekiel was prophesying, Daniel was prophesying in Babylon - but these political and religious hierarchy were contradicting, arrogantly, saying: 'We're alright! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!'. They were arrogantly asserting their own security and their own position. Of course that wasn't only in their own lives, because they were leading others and they were telling them: 'Look, you build that house you were talking about. You do the extension, you build that business, build the hotel - everything is going to be alright. People aren't going to come and destroy the city and set it alight, everything is going to carry on as normal! There's no threat!'.
You see, that's the danger of false prophets. You wonder why sometimes Paul condemns them so strongly: the reason is because they lead simple souls astray! These men had listened to those who cried: 'Peace!', when there was no peace. It had filled them with a self-confidence. If you look at verse 3 of chapter 11, in the first part it says: '[They say to the people], It is not near; let us build houses'. 'This judgement is not near, where is the promise of it coming?'. Literally what it seems to mean is this: 'Those who are afar-off in the land of exile, they can do what they like. If it pleases them they don't have to build anything, they can take the prophets advice - but you set about building your houses, and that doesn't concern us what they are doing'. Do you remember Jeremiah prophesied to the people in captivity and said to them: 'You better settle down there, because you're going to be there for 70 years', remember that? These leaders of the people back in Jerusalem are saying: 'Let them listen to all that nonsense, they can do what they like - but you build here. They might like to build there thinking they're staying, but we know we're staying in Jerusalem. You build, everything will be alright!'.
Their attitude is confirmed in the second part of verse 3, where they say: 'this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh'. Now a caldron is a very solid thing - but what they are actually saying is that the flesh is the best part of the meat, it's actually the real beef. They are saying: 'We're not the offal, we're not the offal that has been rejected of God and sent into captivity. We're the meat, we're the fillet. We're in a caldron, we're protected, don't you worry everything is going to be alright for us! We're not going from the frying pan into the fire!'. What a picture of the unregenerate man, especially the unregenerate religious man: 'I'm alright'. How many times do you hear this: 'I don't need to be saved! I'm not a bank robber, I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a rapist, I'm not a murderer! I'm alright, I go to my church, I'm baptised, I do everything well'? But those are the ones the Lord will say to: 'I never knew you!'.
Their attitude is further seen in verse 15: 'Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession'. What they're literally saying is: 'The exiles are the ones that are far away from God. This land was given to us, this land is our possession, why do you think we're still in it? We're here, you're the ones in exile - you, Ezekiel, all your people - we're still here!'. Possession is nine tenths of the law, isn't that right? That's the way they were thinking: 'God has pleasure in us, we're still here. We must be God's remnant, we must be the ones who are pleasing God - it's the captives who are under God's judgement' - but God, by the Holy Spirit through Ezekiel, is saying: 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall'.
The facts of the matter can be found in verse 7, look at it: 'Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it'. 'I'm going to boil you in the pot!', that's what God's saying! 'I'm going to boil you!', verse 8, 'The sword that you feared, you're going to die from it'. In verse 10 the same message: 'The land is not going to be your possession, but rather the Lord will bring you out of the land and judge you at the borders of Israel', verse 10. If you read 2 Kings 25 and 21 you will find that the fulfilment of it is when the citizens of the city of Jerusalem were all led out and slaughtered at Riblah by Nebuchadnezzar.
The fundamental challenge here is the claiming by God's people of the land: 'It's our land! We're in the land that God has given to us!'. The language that the prophet uses here is deliberately chosen to create the idea of an anti-exodus. You remember the exodus, where the Jews were delivered from Egypt into the promised land, well the language Ezekiel uses is here deliberately trying to evoke into their mind an anti-exodus - out of the promised land back into Egypt, only it's Babylon!
He says: 'I will drive you out of the city, just as Israel was driven out of Egypt', look at verse 9, it says that. Once the promise was to deliver Israel from the land of the Egyptians, but now God is threatening to give them into the hand of foreigners! The judgements that once came, the plagues that came upon Egypt, God is going to pour those plagues upon His own people. The phrase that He uses in verse 10: 'the borders of Israel' is meant to bring to the mind of the children of Israel the conquest into Canaan land, where all of the area was sectioned and divided under all the tribes that were established. God is saying: 'Those borders, I'm going to take you to the very end of them, and I'm going to give all those borders to your enemies'. Because of their failure to keep the Lord's decrees, and to keep the laws in the land, they were being pushed out of the land.
They had become worldly, if you look at verse 12 God says: '[You have lived] after the manners of the heathen that are round about you' - and that's the message. When God's people become like the world, the glory goes! Ezekiel falls to his knees again, because Pelatiah dies - in fact, as Ezekiel is actually prophesying all these things, Pelatiah dies. Now Pelatiah is in Jerusalem, remember that Ezekiel is only seeing a vision, Ezekiel is still in captivity. But Ezekiel, as he's speaking in captivity, as he's seeing this vision of Pelatiah standing before him, Pelatiah - out of the vision, in real life - literally drops dead! 'Pelatiah', do you know what it means? 'The Lord causes a remnant to escape' - that's what his name means! When he died, and the word got back to Ezekiel, he thought the hope of a remnant had died! He was thinking: 'Well, if the people of the land aren't even safe, Lord, who are You going to save?'.
Who will be left if those in the land are destroyed? God answers his question, and He tells him about the glory restored in verses 14 to 21. Look at verse 15, God tells him: 'Your brethren, Ezekiel, your kindred, all the house of Israel - you are going to be the one, the future of Israel lies among the exiles'. It is Ezekiel's brethren, literally it means in the Hebrew 'the men of your redemption'. 'The men of your redemption, Ezekiel, the people that I have sent you to redeem, they are the future. Your fellow exiles!'. The Lord's movement is not just a departure from Jerusalem, now you must understand this, but it's a departure to Babylon. It's a departure to a certain people.
If you look at verse 16: 'Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come'. It literally means 'a sanctuary for a little time'. The Lord's going to perform a new exodus, after this anti-exodus where He takes the people into captivity, He's going to perform a new exodus and bring them all back again as His true people out of all the nations that they have been scattered into. Then the land will be redeemed by the Lord! If you look at verse 18 you will see that the people will go into the temple, this new people of God, they will take down all the idols and they will set up the glory of God again.
How's that going to happen? That's a bit of a change, isn't it? If you look at verse 19, here is the answer: 'I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh'. It's a change of heart. God was going to create a new people, He says: 'I will give them one heart', do you know what that means? 'An undivided heart'. 'I will give them a new spirit...I will cause them to receive a heart of flesh' - and if you remember, in chapter 3 and verse 7, He called them a hardhearted people! In contrast, He says in verse 20 - so many times He has said: 'They have not walked in my statutes, they have not obeyed my laws' - verse 20, 'This people shall walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God'. Do you know what that statement is? That was the goal of the exodus and the settlement, conquest, of Canaan land - that's what God's saying. 'I'll give them a land, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God'.
It's been all doom and gloom, hasn't it, this book of Ezekiel? All these chapters are full of judgement, but what a picture of hope! 'I'm going to save a remnant'. You know we studied the book of Haggai and Habakkuk, and we read about their exodus. There was a day coming, unknown to these people, where men like Zerubbabel, and Joshua the high priest, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, were going to build the temple to the glory of God again - because God was determined to save His chosen people! But for those who sinned and stayed in the land there was no hope, verse 21.
As we close, I really do want to bring this to you - because even when these men, this remnant, built the new temple there was disappointment, because there was an expectation that there would be something greater to come. Of course, as we look at the last few chapters of this book, we will find that there is a millennial temple, and there's still a temple to come - and that is a greater thing that will happen. But, you know, if you look at Matthew chapter 23 very quickly - Matthew chapter 23. Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11 are a great commentary of this passage of Scripture. Verse 37 - the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh came to Jerusalem, and He Himself now is standing on the Mount of Olives. He says: 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!' - there are the hardhearted, stiffnecked Jews again! God's prophets are sent to them, and they would not! What will happen? Verse 38: 'Your house is left unto you desolate' - there will be a desolation. Verse 39, what is the consequence? 'Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord'. 'You will not seen me until you receive me again' - what is verse 1 of chapter 24? He talks then about the temple, and how Herod's temple would be destroyed.
Isn't it amazing: the temple in the Gospels is not Herod's temple, it's the Lord Jesus. That's the temple in the Gospels - John 1 and verse 14: 'We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth'. He dwelt among us, He tabernacled among us in flesh - but they wouldn't receive Him! He, as the glory of God, comes from the Holy of Holies, moves to the threshold, moves to the gate, and at this moment stands on the Mount of Olives.
We are the glory today, we are the temple of God. You go to Revelation chapter 2 there's a church, Pergamos, and there are some awful things said about that church. Do you know what the Lord Jesus says? 'You better repent, or I will come and fight against you', imagine that! If God's glory can leave His Old Testament temple, Revelation chapter 2 tells us that God's glory can leave His New Testament temple - and He can leave this temple, and worse than that: a church can become a synagogue of Satan. Isn't that a terrible thing?
But, my friend, the wonderful message that I leave with you tonight is this: there is hope! There is hope, because God always has a remnant - and if you want to be that remnant and worship God in spirit and in truth, He will let His glory rest upon you! When the glory departs it's not long until the outward edifice falls down - but, my friend, when the glory comes in it shines to all the nations around, and it glorifies our Lord Jesus. There's much more for me to share with you, but we'll get on with it next week.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 8
"The Signs And Blunders Movement"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 12:1-13:23 |
| 1. The Drama Of Approaching Exile (chapter 12) i. Stepping through a wall (verses 1-16) ii. Shuddering through a meal (verses 17-28) 2. The Doom Of Apostate Preachers (chapter 13) i. False Prophets (verses 1-16) ii. False Prophetesses (verses 17-23) |
Let me welcome you to our Bible Reading tonight, it's great to see you all gathered with us. I know there are some folk visiting with us, perhaps for the first time, and it's great to see you all with us this evening. We ask that the Lord will bless us together around the word of God, and in His presence. Ezekiel chapter 12, beginning our reading at verse 1 - and the subject this evening, the title is: 'The Signs and Blunders Movement'.
Verse 1: "The word of the Lord also came unto me, saying, Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house. Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for removing, and remove by day in their sight; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house. Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity. Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby. In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel. And I did so as I was commanded: I brought forth my stuff by day, as stuff for captivity, and in the even I digged through the wall with mine hand; I brought it forth in the twilight, and I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight. And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me, saying, Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said unto thee, What doest thou? Say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them. Say, I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby: he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands; and I will draw out the sword after them. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence; that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come; and they shall know that I am the Lord. Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness; And say unto the people of the land, Thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the land of Israel; They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment, that her land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein. And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth? Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord God; I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision. For there shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel. For I am the Lord: I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; it shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God. Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off. Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; There shall none of my words be prolonged any more, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God.
"And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken? Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar: Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God. Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart; and prophesy thou against them, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you? And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies? Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life: Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the Lord".
'The Signs and Blunders Movement'. If you're engaged in any small sense in any Gospel Ministry, you will know this: messages of the Gospel, especially messages about the future and eternity, often go unheeded. That is why few people are saved, because few actually hear the message of the Gospel and listen to it and heed it. In fact, we find ourselves in the predicament of the old prophet Isaiah in chapter 53: 'Who hath believed our report?'. Who has believed our message, the witness that we are giving? It seems that no-one has believed, and that is the way it seemed for Ezekiel in his day. You remember the occasions after certain visions that he had, how he fell down on his face before God and cried to God: 'Ah, Lord God, will You not leave any of us alive?'. It seemed that, although God had promised a remnant after all of His judgements, that as far as Ezekiel could see in his visions of judgement, there were no people left alive. That is probably because very few people heed the message of judgement.
If Ezekiel was expecting a sudden revolutionary change in the thinking of the exiles, if he expected them all to fall down in repentance and in tears, and turning in faith to their God as a result of his prophesying and his preaching - he was brought down to earth with a gigantic bump. That's that we see in chapter 12: God, in verse 2, again declares that Israel is a rebellious house. They haven't changed! In fact He says in verse 2 that they don't see what the Lord shows them, and they don't hear what the Lord says to them. They have eyes to see, but they don't see. They have ears to hear, but they don't hear. Why is that? Because they are a rebellious house, they are stiff-necked, stony-hearted people!
That's what we see in chapter 11 and verse 19 - the Lord promises that He will give them a new heart, one heart, put a new spirit within them. He will take out the stony heart. Now that was in the vision that Ezekiel was seeing, but it had not yet - in chapter 12 - come to fruition. The people of Israel still had a cold, hard, stony heart toward God. C.H. Spurgeon said on one occasion: 'Men display great ingenuity in making excuses for rejecting the message of God's love. They display marvellous skill, not in seeking salvation, but in fashioning reasons for refusing it. They are dextrous in avoiding grace and in securing their own ruin. They hold up first this shield and then the other to ward off the gracious arrows of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which are only meant to slay the deadly sins which lurk in their bosoms. Men are experts at avoiding the gospel and the grace of God'.
That, in effect, is what chapters 12 and 13 are all about. Men and women, just like you and I, who have ears to hear but do not hear, and eyes to see but do not and cannot see! That is the theme: looking and not seeing, hearing but not listening. For that reason Ezekiel was to carry out his actions - this is the reason why he dramatises his message from God, because these are a people who need all that God can give them to bring them back to Himself. So, he is told to carry out these actions as they watch. Seven times in verses 3 to 7 of chapter 12 you find that statement: 'as they watch'. This is to be done in their seeing and in their hearing. But the fact of the matter is, as we go through this passage and through the book, we find that despite a verbal prophecy from the Lord, and despite a visual enacting of sign acts by the prophet, it doesn't result in them understanding. In fact it cements them, and further digs deep the grave of their inability to understand.
In fact in this passage, chapter 12, you find out that they actually asked Ezekiel: 'What are you doing?'. The Lord says that, He says to Ezekiel: 'Tell me, aren't they saying 'What are you doing, Ezekiel?''. Though they see, they don't get the message. Though they hear, they don't understand it - and even when Ezekiel finishes this sign act, and then he orally tries to explain to them what these parables of drama mean, their reaction is found in verse 27. Look at it: 'Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off'. Ezekiel comes to them and tells them that the end is here - not the end is nigh, the end is here! This is coming upon you, this is the judgement for your sins, but still they think to themselves: 'But he doesn't mean us, does he?'.
Even though they hear every word he speaks, and see every act that he does, it is clear that they understand nothing of his message. They are a rebellious people who have ears and do not hear, eyes and do not see. So, again Ezekiel is given this instruction of these sign acts - that's why the first half of our title is: 'The Signs Movement'. Ezekiel is told to dramatise the impending exile that will come upon them right through chapter 12. The first sign act that Ezekiel is instructed to perform is the stepping through the wall that you find in verses 1 to 16. That is depicting the action of the people going in exile - now, you remember that Ezekiel is already in exile, he was taken in the second deportation from Jerusalem into exile beside the river Chebar in the land of captivity there in Babylon. But there still is another deportation to take place, the final deportation where King Zedekiah will be taken out of Jerusalem and, indeed, no-one will be left and the whole city will be burnt to the ground. That is now what Ezekiel is pointing to.
He's speaking, as he steps through this wall as an act, of the final deportation of people into Babylon. God tells him: 'Ezekiel, you've got to put together a sort of lunch box, an exile survival pack. It's to contain a few belongings that you might need in exile, and that you would need to carry along that journey to captivity'. This consisted simply of an animal skin to hold food in, and perhaps to act as a pillow along his journey as he takes a rest. There would also be within that pack a mat for him to lie on, and sleep upon. There would be a little bowl for him to eat out of and drink out of. All of these things Ezekiel was to get together out of his little home, and he was to bring it as a survival pack on his back, to show these people that this is what they're going to need as they go into exile. All this preparation, God says: 'You must do it in the daytime. You've got to do it during the daytime so that everybody can see'.
Now it seems to entail a lot of preparation, whatever it was. If you can imagine him breaking down this wall with his bare hands, it probably would take all day - but that is to emphasise to the people the seriousness of this, and to grasp their attention, to give them eyes to see and ears to hear that this is what they're going to have to suffer. 'So, Ezekiel, you prepare like this all day, but the departure won't come until the evening'. The reason why the departure doesn't come until the evening is to signify God's delay in the judgement - that God is coming, and it may seem that God has been delaying, but He is just delaying until the appointed, allotted time. The gloom is gathering - in other words, God is signifying for them that the cup of His wrath is slowly but surely becoming full, and it is only a matter of time before it will overflow upon them.
That's what verse 4 says: 'Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity'. This is very significant. He waits until the middle of the night, God tells him: 'Don't go until the middle of the night'. We have seen in these studies, over the past number of weeks, the parallels - it's as if, in this book of Ezekiel, the whole of the Old Testament history is being repeated. You see the exodus, you can go right back into Genesis and see the creation, and there's so much of Old Testament history mirrored in this book. Here again you find the exodus mirrored. If you remember, in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 29, it was in the middle of the night that judgement fell upon Egypt: 'And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn'. God is doing it, but He's not doing it any longer to Egypt, He's doing it to Israel!
This is a frightening and appropriate backdrop for the drama that Ezekiel is depicting. At night, then, Ezekiel begins to dig through the wall - probably the wall of his own house - and go through it, taking this baggage on his back with him. You see that in verse 5: 'Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby'. Then God says: 'You see as you do that' - if it wasn't hard enough to dig through his own wall with this baggage on his back, God tells him that he's to cover his face with a veil so that he cannot see the land - verse 6. The point of that is that the people of Jerusalem, and their prince specifically as the representative of the children of Israel, they will go into exile just as Ezekiel is going through this wall, just as he is acting out - their eyes will be covered, in that they will never ever see the land of promise again.
Look at verse 11: 'Say [to them], I am your sign: like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity'. The meaning of this parable is found in verses 10 through to 16, and we don't really have time to go into all the intricate details - it's debated what they actually mean - but, specifically, it concerns King Zedekiah. If you know your Old Testament history you will know that after King Jehoiachin died Zedekiah became the King, as it were - the Prince he was, and becomes the King. In Old Testament historical politics, theoretically Zedekiah becomes Nebuchadnezzar's puppet - politically he does everything that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon wants him to do. Because of this, and because this is only the icing on the cake of the iniquity and idolatry of the children of Israel, Zedekiah the prince, the King, is taken as the pinnacle and the picture of all Judah's sin. So it's narrowed down to him.
The imagery here is very complicated, but the message is absolutely clear. Not only will there be a third and final exile, bringing out those still remaining in Jerusalem and Judah, but the point that is being made here with all the imagery of the exodus in the past is that this is an 'anti-exodus'. God's people - who had been promised the land, and taken into the land by every cost, and God has determined to bring them out of Egypt, bring them through the wilderness with all their sin, griping and murmuring, and bring them across the Red Sea and eventually through the Jordan into the promised land - God was determined, but the condition of the covenant was that they obeyed God in the land. They didn't, and now there's an anti-exodus.
This anti-exodus, at least in these chapters, is being centred on the prince Zedekiah - his personal transgressions. Ezekiel, up to now, has not concentrated on the king as yet, but now he homes in - specifically he's focusing in his prophecy on the King as the representative of the people, and indeed his sins representative of all the people's sins. Ezekiel is told to cover his face - can you imagine the tragedy of that act, as he covers his face to show that the people that will leave the land of promise will never ever see that land again? They will never ever return out of exile! If you were to turn to 2 Kings chapter 25 - you don't need to turn to it - verse 7 tells us of the fulfilment of these prophecies. You read that at a place called Riblah the Babylonians killed all of Zedekiah's sons, they brought all of the King's sons out and slew them! The seventy elders, that are probably the ones that you saw within the visions here in previous weeks, were all brought out as the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem and were all slain. Then it says that they took King Zedekiah, and they took him into exile, and they poked his eyes out and blinded him as a direct fulfilment that he would never ever again see the land of promise! What a picture, what a drama of the approaching exile as Ezekiel steps through that wall.
The second sign that he is asked to give is shuddering through a meal in verses 17 to 28. He is asked to eat and drink with trembling hands and with a shuddering body. Now, if you were to go to the book of Amos I think - if memory serves me correctly - chapter 1 and verse 1, that word 'tremble' that is used in this passage depicting Ezekiel moving, eating this meal, is a word that is translated in Amos as 'earthquake'. So, it wasn't a sort of nervous jitter, it was a real move. It must have been a real sight for the people to see this man trying to drink a cup of whatever it was, and a meal of whatever he was having, but it going all over the place - maybe dribbling down him, maybe all over his face! A sense of uncontrollable moving and trembling and shuddering.
Now the thing that struck me as I was looking at this today, was that Ezekiel didn't try and win and woo his listeners, that could not hear and could not see, by doing absolutely anything! He didn't try and win them at the expense of truth and at the expense of what God told him to do - I daresay this was a very unattractive sight to see this man shaking like an earthquake as he's eating his meal. But that is what God told him to do, and that is what he did! He was depicting the terror that the people would feel as they were taken into exile. He was saying: 'The violence that you have filled the land with, with all your sin, and with all your rebellion - it's going to return upon your own heads in the devastation of your cities and the devastation of this whole land. I will show you!'. If you underline every time you find this phrase, it's remarkable! Surely you've noticed it as we've been reading: 'They will know that I am the Lord'. It's powerful, isn't it?
It's wonderful that we believe in a sovereign God, isn't it? You know, even in this passage, the remnant isn't forgotten, His grace is not forgotten. Even though things are so bad in His own nation, He's still sovereign. He's still a God who can override these things. In fact I go as far as to say that He is a God who will save His own people at any cost! When God makes a promise - and God promised the children of Israel that He would save them even if it's a small, small remnant - He is a God of His word! Even in the face of all this sin, even in the face of all the idolatry and all of the abomination to His holy soul that is vexed - He is not powerless, even in the face of ears that will not hear and eyes that will not see He will get His message through. The remnant will come, one day, to see that they have escaped - and they will realise that they have escaped in order that they receive the inheritance of the land. But do you know the awful thing about the remnant receiving the inheritance of the land? Who's in the land? The people of Judah are in the land, the remnant - you remember last week - would be the people in exile, the people in the concentration camp, Ezekiel's brethren, his friends, his kith and kin. In order that they became the people again in the land, the people in the land had to be taken out!
That's the tragedy - because the people in the land would not recognise their sin, God would replace them! It was an unpalatable truth that the people in the land did not want to see. They had ears to hear, but they wouldn't hear; eyes to see, but they would not see - it was unpalatable. The message that we preach today - isn't it amazing that it hasn't changed too much? The message that we preach is unpalatable to the world! God must judge sin, and if God doesn't judge sin upon Christ for your surety and your atonement, He will judge sin upon you in hell! That's not too popular, is it? It's not popular to preach that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Indeed, in Rabbi Harold Kushner's (sp?) recent book entitled: 'How Good Do We Have to Be?' that he wrote in 1996 - he argues the notion, and I quote: 'God does not hold us to strict standards of right and wrong. The idea that God knows every secret nasty thing we ever do, even our secret nasty thoughts, and that every sin separates us from God's love - the whole argument of His book is that it cannot be'. That's the way people think in our land, isn't it? They prefer to be optimistic with regards to God and with regards to their future. They don't heed the warnings of 'Flee from the wrath to come!' - they want to think the best thoughts about the future, because honesty and truth are devastating to them. The truth that 'God seeth me' is awful! God sees what I do, it doesn't matter the facade that I portray to the Iron Hall, God sees my heart! That is devastating to human beings.
God's visual aid is what we preach, isn't it? Ezekiel had to show this by stepping through a wall - God's anger towards sin - they'd be cast out. Ezekiel was showing, through this sign act of shuddering through a meal, the terror of the Lord. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God - but what is it that we preach? What is the message that is unpalatable to the world today and that we are rejected for? It is this: 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners'! It's unpalatable! It might be 'Gentle Jesus meek and mild', and 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so' - but in reality, when a man grows out of his childlike simple faith he begins to realise that the message of the Gospel is a stumbling block to him and foolishness, because it tells him that 'Because of my sin Christ had to die! Because I'm a sinner and I cannot approach God, and I cannot reach God with any moral standards or any theological ladder, because of that the Son of God had to die'! That's unpalatable, but that's our message: the judgement of God seen in the life of Christ, a Man of sorrows; seen in His death, as He lays upon Him the iniquity of us all; seen in His resurrection, that because He is risen we can rise again. But the point is this: if He doesn't rise again, we don't rise again - and if we don't accept His rising again, we won't rise again!
That is the message that people cannot handle: God's ultimate acts of judgement upon sin, and therefore His deliverance in salvation. All that God wanted these people to do was admit their sin and take hold, by faith, upon the means of salvation - but they heard but they would not listen; they saw, but they would not take heed. Well it's just as well, isn't it, that we don't believe that sin does not separate us from God. We believe it does. Why do we believe that? Because it separated Christ from God at Calvary. It's just as well, isn't it, that we have the Holy Spirit today - Amen! Though men have eyes to see, but they do not see; and ears to hear, but they do not hear - the Holy Spirit is the one who was sent of the Son of God to open men's eyes, and to open their deafened ears, to unplug them. That is this sign act that we portray: Christ and Him crucified, and risen, and the Holy Spirit comes and He opens the eyes of the unbeliever to see this. But do you know something? As old Duncan Campbell said, and I agree with him totally, he was an old highland Calvinist, but he said this: 'We do not believe in any form of God's sovereignty that nullifies man's responsibility'. We do not believe in any form of God's sovereignty that nullifies man's responsibility.
This is our message: Christ and Him crucified, risen, interceding in heaven. But that's not our role over, but we have got to be Ezekiels who portray that message and act it out! That's what Paul did when he said: 'I bear in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus. I am crucified with Christ'. What's that text? 'I fill up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ' - we could spend all night on that one! The point is this, the Lord says that we have a part to play in playing out these signs. We are the witnesses before a watching world. In Acts 1 verse 8 He said: 'Ye shall be my witnesses'. We - this is an amazing thing - we are the letters from Christ to the world around us! Second Corinthians 3:3: 'Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart'.
This is not just verbal, it's not just verbal you know - standing up and giving your testimony, singing gospel songs, or giving out a tract, or preaching in the Open Air - this is visual. The world needs this more than anything today! The world needs to see people living the Christian life, living the life of witness of Christ, the sign act of the dying and rising and living now of the Lord Jesus Christ in your flesh. You see words today may, on their own, not open the blinded eyes or unplug the deafened ears. What needs to happen is what happened 2000 years ago when the word became flesh and dwelt among men! That's still God's plan: incarnation, that Christ be formed in you! The world needs to see it, but my friend before you try and do it, remember that just as it was costly and uncomfortable for Ezekiel it will be costly and uncomfortable for you. How would you like to go home and dig a hole in your wall, pull all the bricks and mortar down, and get this lunchbox from your house and put it on your back, put a veil over your head, and walk through it in the middle of the night? Do you not think that cost him? Do not think it cost him to lie on his side - one side for 390 days and another side for 40 days? To get up and eat famine food, to do all these things, to shave his beard off and save his hair off? It cost him! It cost him to live the word of God!
Oh, how it cost our Lord when He became flesh. Indeed, we underestimate what this was - the incarnation. It meant Him leaving His home in Glory, but more than that: coming to earth and taking upon Himself humanity, and indeed many of the weaknesses and limitations of humanity. Hunger! Thirst! Tiredness! Weariness! It cost Him to humble Himself. One writer says this rightly: 'Evangelicals have often been accused of making the word that became flesh back into words again'. Evangelicals have often been accused of making the word that became flesh back into words again!
The fourth century Emperor Julian complained to his pagan priests in the day in which he lived that these impious Galileans, speaking of Christians, were looking after the pagan poor as well as their own people were! The complaint of the Emperor: 'These people, these Christians, are doing a better job than we are for our own people!'. That's living it out, isn't it? Such selfless sacrifice, sacrificial behaviour, it was staggering in Ezekiel's day. Can you see them all standing around all day watching him running to and fro, getting all these things, digging through a wall? They're still standing there in the middle of the night watching: 'What on earth is that man doing?'. It's still staggering today when men and women in this world that are living for self and sin see you and I laying down our lives for them! They can't understand it! 'Why do you do it? What's in it for you?'.
Isn't it amazing? But do you know something? As our culture becomes more and more anti-Christian and anti-gospel, the only way to reach rebellious people is to go after them. Ezekiel had to go after these people, he had to bring them in contact with his vision - but even when he did go after them it didn't open their eyes! It's necessary to preach the gospel, the word of God, it's necessary to live the word of God out - but even when Ezekiel did all that, and even if we do all that, it will never open men and women's eyes! If you look at this passage, especially in chapter 11, you will see that they needed one heart, they needed a new spirit in them and they needed new hearts. That's still what men and women need today, they need new hearts - and that's something only God can give them. Unless the Lord opens their hearts all our labour will be in vain. So what do we do? Do we sit around and wait until God opens their heart? No! We preach the word, we live the word, and we pray relying on God - knowing that He wants to save men and women! When we do our part and implore Him to do His part, the two will come together!
What a picture of the drama of approaching exile. Well, the drama of nine o'clock is approaching as well, and I want to get on to the second point: 'The Doom of the Apostate Preachers'. This is fascinating. It's not chapter 13, as it says on your sheet, it's chapter 12 verse 21 right through to the end of chapter 13. The reason why it is such is, in verses 21 to the end of chapter 12, there you find the prophet expressing the dilemma of the people trying to distinguish between true and false prophets. It was very difficult, when all these men were running around with false prophecies, to know who was true and who was not. Ezekiel, is he true? Are all these other prophecies, like Hananiah in Jerusalem - the one that we thought about a few weeks ago that said the people would get out in two years, and they went to Ezekiel for a vision because it was time that prophecy was fulfilled - is he a true prophet or not? How do the people know?
In order to deal with that he first of all deals with the cynicism and the general confusion that resulted from these conflicting messages that the people were hearing. In verses 21 to 28 he talks about the confusion over the prophecies, and he does this in two ways - he mentions two slogans of the day. The first slogan is in verse 22, these are proverbs that people used in that day, and the first proverb suggests the ineffectiveness of the word of God. Look at verse 22 of chapter 12: 'The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth'. The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth - what the people were saying was: 'We've heard this for years! What are you trying to tell us, Ezekiel? We've been hearing this talk of judgement since the eighth century BC!'. This proverb literally translates: 'Time passes and nothing happens'. Therefore they concluded that nothing would ever happen: 'Time has gone on, nothing has happened!'.
So God says: 'Well you tell them, Ezekiel', verse 23, 'the days are near when every vision will be fulfilled. I'm going to fulfil it! Every vision will be fulfilled because of my action. There's going to be no more false visions, Ezekiel, no more flattering words and divination among the people', verse 24, 'but the Lord is going to speak and you mark my words, Ezekiel, when I speak what I say will happen', verse 25, 'and there will be no delay about it! They'll not be able to say the days are prolonged and every vision faileth, for the false prophets will be cut off and everyone will know who the true prophet is - Ezekiel. More than all that, they will know that I am the Lord'. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said: 'The great watershed that divides earth into two populations are those who will believe God's revelation, and those who will not'. Isn't that it in simple terms? Those who will believe God's revelation and those won't.
The first phrase was: 'The days are prolonged and it hasn't happened yet'. The second is found later on, verse 28: 'The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off'. Now these weren't people who weren't believing God would do it, but they're just people who say: 'God's going to do it, but you know surely there's another generation yet? Surely we'll be able to live our lives, God's not going to do it' - these procrastinators! It wouldn't affect them, it wouldn't affect their particular generation, but it would hit a future generation. Had not a whole line of prophets prophesied a Babylonian invasion down the years? Surely one more generation would come before the axe of judgement descends? God says: 'They're going to receive a word from me as well', and He turns this proverb round on its head in verse 28 if you look at it. He says: 'Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; There shall none of my words be prolonged any more, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God'.
These false prophets did not regard the future, and we live in a world today, a society, where its values, laws, environmental conditions, do not consider the future. We were preaching last night: 'Fear not him that can kill the body, but Him that can destroy both soul and body in hell' - that's foreign, isn't it? Live for the day! Don't be thinking about eternity! I mean, let's face it - I heard someone say recently, they were talking to someone, witnessing to someone and they made a remark of some kind such as: 'If I had to live this life again, and at the end of it all I found that it wasn't true, I would live it just like this all over again'. Well, I wouldn't! For we are of all men most miserable if there is no resurrection. I wouldn't be losing my life now if there wasn't a gaining of it later. We are fools in the eyes of the world! In the eyes of the world that cannot see a future day of prize and eternity and judgement and glory, we're fools - and we are fools! We're fools for Christ, because we believe God's revelation!
Even though men live today without regard for the future, they don't think of the consequences, God will judge false prophets. The first thing He deals with are the false prophets in verses 1 to 16, and He basically says: 'Their prophecies are from themselves!'. It's in their imagination! They prophesy out of their spirit! The origin of their prophecy is the difference, and they've got to know that I am the Lord. They can't just prophesy out of their heads, or out of their hearts, they've got to prophesy the revealed word of God. They follow their own spirit - verse 3 of chapter 13 - they follow their own spirit, but they have seen nothing. They even use the right language, verse 2 of chapter 13, they say 'Hear the word of the Lord', they say 'The Lord declares', but they have no calling from the Lord! They even have a hope to see that it will happen, they really believe in their head and heart that all this is going to come to pass - but God hasn't told them and God has not called them!
These false prophets, do you know what they were doing? They were speaking in regard to their own hopes, rather than what the Lord said. They seduced these people, these poor people, into a false security - and it would be devastatingly exposed in the coming day of judgement. God criticises them burningly, He says: 'You're like foxes in the desert, scavengers. All you're interested in is what you can get out of the ruins of Jerusalem - it's self-interest. You're not interested in the people themselves. You're pursuing your own prey', verse 5, 'You're not going to be the one's standing in the gap on the day of judgement, pleading for the people when the judgement comes. You're only in it for what you can get out of it - your own security and safety'. Verses 10 to 16: 'You're another wall. You're a badly built wall, a rickety wall. You're not interested in building properly the city of God, but all you want to do is merely', and that word is 'whitewash', that mortar that's talked about there, 'All you want to do is whitewash'. Do you see in the Hebrew language? It literally can be translated 'vanity', or 'hogwash'. 'You only want to hogwash an outward hypocrisy, but you're not interested in the people'.
Oh, I've so much to say. Even the prophetesses came in, and they had magical charms in verse 17. They had these kind of ties, a magical ritual, that they put round their arms. Verse 18 says they made veils and put them over their heads, and it has a magic connotation. They were attracting the people through this conjuring and this magical power that they seemed to have. They had no divine calling, they only followed the pursuit of personal profit and gain. Verse 19 says they were in it for the barley and for the bread - but what they were doing, verse 20 says, was ensnaring people like birds, exploiting the people, making them the disposable means of their profit.
We must finish, but what I have to say is this: there are men in our land tonight, and there are evangelists coming to visit our land - even in the Odyssey* - and they are false prophets. Now, you be warned! For many of them are in it for the money, to line their pockets, and they attract people with magic - not the word of the Lord, with magic. Do you see these missions that are now been advertised by the miracle and not by the Gospel? That is not our message! We could outline this for hours, but the point is this - and this is my final climax of everything that we have said tonight - and it's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:8: 'For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?'. If you don't tell it like it is, if you don't become a watchman of God and just present the word of God, what will happen? I'll tell you what will happen, the instruction to the watchman: 'If you tell them and they go ahead, well, they're damned; but if you tell them and they're saved, that's great'.
*Conference centre in Belfast
These prophets were telling them what they wanted to hear, and they were damning their souls and weren't telling them the truth to deliver them. My friend, as we live in such a pluralistic, wishy-washy - and even in evangelicalism, where men line their pockets and are afraid to preach it like it is in case they get kicked out, lose their job. You might say: 'Well, that's OK for you, you're secure in here' - that's alright, but my point is this: I intend to always endeavour to be in a position where I can say what the Lord puts upon my heart, regardless. Whenever I can't, I'll be away! My friend, that is the key: if the trumpet sounds an uncertain sound, what will the people do? What will they do? We need to present in our words, and in our lives, the message of God.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ezekiel - Chapter 9
"Strange Answers To Strange Prayers"
Copyright 2001
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ezekiel 14 |
| 1. The Answer That Was Not Expected (verses 1-11) 2. The Intercessors That Would Not Have Mattered (verses 12-20) 3. The Judgement That Would Not Be Averted (verses 21-23) |
Now let me welcome you this evening to the Iron Hall, to our Bible Class. It's our last Bible Reading in this season, it's great to welcome you here tonight to this final study in the book of Ezekiel for this season. Thank you for coming, and let me give you a big thank you also for supporting us right throughout the year in the studies here on Monday evenings. It's been great to see you, we don't take for granted by any extreme your attendance here week after week.
Ezekiel chapter 14, and excuse the screechiness of my voice - I've got a bit of a cold, so there'll be not as much steam tonight maybe, but we'll get through it nevertheless. Ezekiel chapter 14, this is the only chapter we're looking at tonight. We've been looking most of these evenings at two chapters at a time, but there's so much in this chapter - there's so much in all of them - but there's so much in this one in particular that I want to spend a bit of time over it.
Verse 1: "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them? Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols; That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself: And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him; That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God. The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God. If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts: Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves. Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast? Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God".
The title that you have on your study sheet this evening is: 'Strange Answers to Strange Prayers'. The question often arises on the Christian pilgrimage: does God answer prayer? Does God answer prayer? That often stems from an experience in your life whereby you've sought God over a certain matter, you've sought Him perhaps with crying and tears, yet the answer that you sought never came. We often tell the children that God always answers prayer, and I'm not sure that that is correct - but nevertheless we could say that there are a number of answers to prayer that we can get. We can get the answer 'Yes', we can get what we're asking God for and what we're pleading for. I believe it is true to say that we can also get the answer 'No', when we ask for something that is not according to God's will He is not obliged to give us it. There may be the answer 'Wait, it's not My time yet. Ye have need of patience, though I tarry, I will not tarry' - God will eventually give what you're asking, but He tests us and He causes us to wait for the answer.
But added to those three normal responses that we know to come from prayer, there must be times in our experience when God answers us in a different way than we expect. In other words, when we pray to God for something and He does answer us, but He doesn't give us specifically the thing that we have been looking for. Perhaps there are even times when God gives us an answer to the question that we should have been asking. In other words, God, by the answer that He gives us, tells us: 'Look, this is the thing that you need, not the thing you're asking for - this is the thing you ought to have been asking for'.
In chapter 14 of Ezekiel you have a scenario a little like that, because again in verse 1 you find that the elders of the children of Judah have come again to God's prophet to seek God's word. They've done it before, and now they come again, but as we read down this passage we find that their question to God's prophet is but a veneer of an orthodox faith. In other words, it's like the Pharisees that we've been studying on Sunday mornings as we go through the Sermon on the Mount, there was this outward religiosity, this outward conformity to rule, but inwardly there was dead men's bones. We've seen this in weeks gone by, that what these people needed was one heart - in other words, not a divided heart. What they needed was God to put His Spirit within them, because His Spirit was not residing in their bodies. What they needed was God to do heart surgery, and to take out their stony heart, their cold, subordinate, awful rebellious heart out, and give them a heart of flesh and a heart of obedience to God.
So, as we see them coming to God's prophet, we see the veneer of an orthodox faith. But yet they come, and I believe they're sincere enquirers. I believe that, as they come to God's prophet, they are seeking for a response from God. You have to remember that these are leaders of an exiled people, an exiled community, and I believe perhaps they're coming to Ezekiel with a particular question, addressing God, asking Him: 'What is the way forward for us? What is going to happen? I mean, are we really going to be judged? Are we really going to be destroyed?'. They come looking for an oracle from God, a prophetic utterance to know the future of Jerusalem and the future of the people of God.
We don't know what their question was, but I suspect it may have had something to do with their leadership of the people, as the people continually came to them and asked: 'What is going to happen?'. Perhaps they couldn't cope with the questions of the people of: 'How long are we to remain in exile? How long are we to suffer? How long is it going to be until armies come from Jerusalem and deliver us, and take us back to our riches and back to our land and our home and our loved ones?'. The substance of the question is not really the important thing, what is important is how God answers the question. For God doesn't answer their specific question, but God answers the question they should have been asking - and that was a question regarding their spiritual condition. If I can say it reverently: God never beats around the bush. God goes straight to the jugular, He goes straight to the problem.
That is exactly what He does here. He doesn't answer them and address the question about their earthly geography in Babylon, rather than in Jerusalem. He doesn't talk to them about their physical exile away from the promised land, but He comes to them and brings straight before them their awful spiritual poverty and condition. Therefore they get, as it says on your sheet, the answer that they did not expect. They had come to seek God's word. They had come with their question, yet with the veneer of an orthodox faith, and they come - not realising it, perhaps - that they are guilty of breaking the first and second commandments. Guilty of breaking that commandment that says: 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me'; guilty of breaking the commandment that says: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of any living thing'.
So, they come to enquire of God, and they're standing before a holy and a righteous God as transgressors of the law, as abominable sinners, as idolaters. Now, if you look at verse 3 you see a contrast between these men - remember these are the elders in exile, not the elders that we were thinking about in the vision in weeks gone by who were still in Jerusalem, they haven't been exiled yet those 70 elders that we were talking about - but these are elders, the leaders of the people in the concentration camp that Ezekiel lives in by the river Chebar. Now here's the contrast between these elders and the ones in Jerusalem, verse 3: 'Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart' - and you should ring that every time it's mentioned throughout this chapter, it's mentioned about three times in verse 6 again and verse 7.
Here's the difference: in Jerusalem the elders were leading the people openly, there was an open shamelessness in worshipping the gods of Babylon. Remember that Ezekiel saw the vision of that statue of Asherah, possibly, outside the city. Remember God brought him nearer, into the very temple, and took him through that hole in the temple wall, and showed him upon the walls of the temple all of those graven images of all the abominations of filthy unclean beasts that the men of Israel were worshipping - probably gods of Egypt. You remember that God took him even further into the temple, nearer the Holy Place, and he saw men who had their backs to God's Holy Place and were bowing down worshipping the sun. Remember he saw, out in the court, women in tears weeping for Tammuz - and you remember that Tammuz was the fertility god, and by weeping to Tammuz they believed that they would get fertility in their land and in their harvest and in fruit.
That was Jerusalem, all outward - they weren't ashamed of it! But here in captivity it's in the heart - they have the outward veneer of Judaism, and religiosity, and the covenant of Jehovah, but deep in the recesses - and I say this so often because the verse of this hymn grips my soul: 'In those dark chambers where polluted things hold empire o'er the soul'. There were idols, there was Baalism, there was Asherah, there were all sorts of foreign gods of Medo-Persia and Babylon and Egypt, and all sorts of nations, and all the Gentile peoples round about Jerusalem and Israel. They were bowing down to those gods in their heart. With all of that it's still amazing, isn't it, that they didn't hesitate to come to God, isn't it? They didn't hesitate to hedge their bets, to seek God's guidance in addition to their little closet deities. They were following every other god, the Jerusalemites were doing it openly, those in captivity were doing it in their heart, but nevertheless when their back was against the wall, when there was trouble coming, they did not hesitate one moment coming to God with all the other gods in their heart and asking God: 'What are You going to do to help us?'.
Do you know what God said? 'You don't deserve a response! You don't deserve to be answered!'. Even though God told them they didn't deserve a response, He responds anyway, and He says: 'I'm not going to respond through Ezekiel as I have been doing. You're not going to hear the word of God through the prophet - you want to hear me speak to you? Well, I'll speak to you directly!'. We see in the chapters that will follow how God speaks to them directly in His judgement from heaven. God does not address their specific question, but rather He probes beneath the surface to the deeper problems in their spiritual life, the problems of the enquirers. As we read these words together today, as they have been right throughout this book, they are terrible words of judgement - and especially in this chapter they have a tone of a legal sentence, that God has come in His judicial robes and that God has plunged the hammer down upon the desk and pronounced a legal sentence upon His people. God comes to them in mercy, but yet in judgement, and calls them to repentance, calls them to turn from their evil idolatry and their evil ways - but the whole weight of His message is judgement! If you don't repent you will all likewise perish! If you do not turn to God from your idols, if you do not turn to God He will turn His face away from you!
It's an awful thing to think that God was threatening to avert His face from every one of these people who had idols set up in their heart. One author puts it like this: 'When the idolater turns aside it is sin, but when God turns aside it is death'. Awful! Because they turned to their sin, God would turn away from and it would mean spiritual death because the wages of sin is death. But my friend, I want you to see that, just like there was a rainbow in the vision of the glory of God and the chariot throne in the first chapter of this book, and as we've seen right throughout awful hellish chapters of judgement and God's retribution upon the people, right throughout it all there has been this little speck and ray of hope. The reason why God is bringing judgement upon them is not just for punishment for their evil deeds, but God is using this judgement to serve for their salvation, God is wanting to drive them from their evil deeds, to drive them their gods and goddesses and their sins of idolatry. It is His purpose in a heart of love and faithfulness to turn them to Himself again, to restore them to a full knowledge of Himself. Isn't it amazing that even in this awful judgement, God is wanting to bring them back in grace again! Even in the midst of all of this God's grace is working!
In verse 3, which is the key to this whole chapter, we see that these children of Israel, the children of God, were doing what the Lord said a disciple cannot do - do you remember? We cannot serve two masters. The result of serving two masters will be judgement by the Lord - it's very clear. It wasn't openly serving another master, it was subtle, in the heart, inwardly, the spiritual desire for other things, other gods, other occupations, other habits, other spending of your energy and your money and your life and your time. In a world in exile that was crumbling around them, their lives were being devastated, they turned their heart away from God and turned it to the world and the gods of the world. Now I cannot enter in, for one moment, and neither can you, to the anxiety and the pain and tribulation that they were going through in exile. I don't know what it was like, and as I look at the signs that Ezekiel was asked to perform, and the awfulness of these signs - and these were only typifying the suffering that would come upon these people - they were awful! I wouldn't like to go through the signs of Ezekiel, never mind the actual fulfilment of his prophetic acts.
Yet in all of this, perhaps to numb the pain, perhaps to observe that it seemed that God had abandoned them - and: 'If my God has abandoned me, I'll have to seek another God. I need another God to comfort me, I need another God to save me and deliver me from my enemy. If the Lord cannot deliver me, then why not try Marduk the god of Babylon? Why not try Baal or Asherah?'. People do it today: 'I can't escape from the horror, from the captivity, the prison doors within my soul, so I turn to the god of drugs, I turn to the god of a new car, the god of a house, the god of a career, the god of a new business deal'. The thing is this: when we don't find satisfaction in our hearts, this is common to humanity whether it be Babylonian humanity in the ancient Near East, or 21st century humanity today in Ulster, men and women turn away from God to turn and soothe their heart, to dull the pain, ultimately to find satisfaction. Their hearts can be torn between two loyalties, and even the children of God's hearts can be double minded.
We too can be attracted to the false promises of idols, can't we? The spiritual grass greener on the idolatrous other side. Now come on, young people, we must be honest with these things, and older folk you've got to be honest with the young people - they have never had it as bad. What they are facing, and the attractiveness that it seems, as the world worships these idols of sex, drugs, rock and roll, everything that you can imagine - they seem in the eyes of men and women to be satisfying them, that's why they are running after them! The spiritual grass is always greener on the idolatrous other side, but you know the awful result is what you find in verse 5. God says: 'I will take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols'. When you look for a satisfaction and a comfort and a dulling of the pains and anxieties of the world in another god, in another deity, or in things that take away your attention from God Almighty, what happens is: you backslide from God! What happens is, as God says to these elders: you cannot expect to receive a word from the Lord, for God is not deceived.
I suppose, theoretically, Ezekiel could have been deceived by these men. He wasn't, but one thing is certain: God cannot be deceived! Is that not the theme of the book of Ezekiel? You go back to the chariot car in chapter 1, and the wheels within wheels that were touching the earth, but were also touching the cherubim and the throne of God - what was covering those wheels? Eyes, all over, inward, outward. In fact as we looked at the chariot - I think it was in chapter 10, as Ezekiel saw it again - I think he said, if I'm right, that not just the wheels were covered with eyes but the whole of the chariot was covered inside, outside, with eyes. The omnipotence of God!
Saul found to his detriment that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. 'Do you want a word from the Lord, elders of Israel? Well, you'll get one - not through the prophet, but directly from me', saith the Lord, 'I'm going to demonstrate to you my attitude towards you by making an example of you before all the nations and all the world'. Verse 8: 'I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord'. 'Just as Lot's wife became a proverbial example of the dangers of looking back, of the dangers of looking back to the world and all that is in the world, so I will make Israel a byword - I will make them a proverbial warning of the dangers of what it is like to have a divided loyalty, what it is like if you do not follow the Lord fully!'.
I don't know about you, but as I have been studying these words of Ezekiel they have probed my spiritual anatomy like an x-ray. They speak so accurately of the human condition, and the first thing I want you to see of the human condition, yours and mine, in these elders, is their blindness that God exposes. Imagine, you know all the words of judgement that we've had hitherto in this book, and that Ezekiel has delivered to the people - yet they still have not understood anything of Ezekiel's message. They haven't realised yet that God has put them where they are in exile because of their sin, because of their idolatry. They haven't seen, and made the equation in their head: 'This is the wages of our sin. This is the consequence of what we have done'.
The Lord summed that up last week in the statement: 'They have eyes to see, but they do not see; they have ears to hear, but they cannot hear'. They don't see that this is all a judgement for their sin, and the amazing thing of it is, as we look in hindsight: they are still in exile, and they are still indulging in exile in the sins that took them there in the first place. They're like the criminal in prison for murder who, in prison, kills a fellow convict and then wonders why he can't be released from his cell. In exile they commit the same sins, and then they come running to God's prophet looking to God's prophet for when they're going to be delivered! It's worse than that because they wanted to cover every possibility of safety, they didn't just run to Jehovah their covenant God of Judah, but they ran to every god that they could within their heart. They were playing it safe. They came with their faith to God, but they thought that that faith could be usefully supplemented by a little worship of this god, and that god, and the other god. Some could help, perhaps if Jehovah failed, Baal would help. Perhaps if Marduk failed, Asherah would help. 'We'll hedge our bets. The laws of probability tell us that if we follow as many gods as possible then we will be alright' - but God says: 'I am a jealous God! I will not share my glory with another, I will not be set in your spiritual deity trophy cabinet with other gods shining'.
How blind they were! The amazing thing to me is this: they were not the least bit uneasy coming to Ezekiel for God's help. Isn't it amazing? Thinking that God didn't know what they were up to, thinking that God couldn't see into their heart! Running to the prophet of God with all this darkness and idolatry in them, and what a picture that is to me of my own life at times, when I will pursue my own idols, run after my own pet sins - the things that satisfy for a moment my flesh, and my lusts, and my hate, and all that wells up within my heart - but when the need arises I don't hesitate to seek God! Isn't that right? When I need Him, I run to Him. I'm not ashamed, I don't hesitate to ask Him for help and for answers - and the amazing thing about the blindness of the sinner is that they cannot even see the inconsistency in such behaviour.
I think the fearful thing about all this is that, subconsciously in our mind, we begin to believe that God doesn't really see what we're doing. Or maybe not that God doesn't see what we're doing, but that it doesn't matter to God because we've been forgiven, we're redeemed, we're on our way to heaven, and we can have these little idols in our heart yet still the Lord will hear us when we run to Him in trouble - but the message of this chapter in Ezekiel is: God saw what they were doing, and what a shock it was to them when He said: 'Yes, you want me to speak, well I'll speak!', but they didn't like what they heard.
You see the blindness of the sinner exposed, the second thing I want you to see is the hypocrisy of prayer exposed. You see the elders had a request for God, and they were going through Ezekiel to give that request to God. They required an answer from God, and we asked at the very beginning tonight the question: does God answer prayer? The biblical answer to that question is: yes, of course God does - but we said that the answer may not correspond with our request. Now God said clearly in verse 3: 'You don't deserve an answer', but yet He gives an answer to the question - but He answers the question that they should have asked! He told them the thing that they needed to know.
Sometimes the things that we need to know are the most uncomfortable things of all. It's amazing, isn't it? They came to hear words of comfort, but the answer was not what they expected. They came for a balm to their ears, they came for a salve to their conscience, they came for words of soothing succour from a gracious, loving, long-suffering God - but what they heard amounted to a death sentence upon them, that God was finished, that God was coming in judgement! Yet the miracle of it all is: in the very midst of that judgement God's mercy can be found in the fact that He answered them at all!
Hypocritical prayers are just like this. I want you to look into your own heart tonight and be honest with yourself, ask yourself: am I like these men? The hypocritical prayer closely imitate the conduct of real prayers. Isn't that what they were doing? Coming to ask of God with outward sincerity, in other words they were stirred by the messages of the prophet - and that has to be said: they had to hear something of what Ezekiel was saying that drove them to say: 'Well, can you not give us a message of comfort? Can you not tell us when it's all going to finish?'. So the message of this man stirred them, otherwise they wouldn't have went to that man, they would have went to the false prophets who were saying: 'Peace! Peace!'. Yet in all of the stirring in their soul with the messages from God, they were still hypocrites!
Then we see that they came to the prophet to hear a word from God. Isn't that amazing? You can be stirred by the message of God, in fact you can seek God for a word from Himself, yet still be a hypocritical sinful prayer. As we see them coming for a word from God, we see that their cover is blown because they lacked the essential qualities of a real enquirer of God. What I mean by that is: they didn't want God's will, but they wanted to be confirmed in their own error and their own superstition. Sometimes people come to me and ask my advice, and sometimes I think in my mind - I haven't always said it to them - but sometimes I think: 'Are you coming to me because you want to hear something, or because you want advice?'. We can be like that with God, can't we? We come wanting to hear a certain answer, wanting to be led a certain way. These men didn't come wanting to know the will of God, but they wanted to be confirmed in their own error and their own superstition. They wanted to be told: 'Look, we'll deliver you, we'll get you back somehow to the land of promise - and it doesn't matter deep down in your heart that there are idols from every nation and every religion in the world'.
Another thing was: they retained their sin in their heart, though they didn't show any outward manifestation of it. Do you know something? That is the prayer meeting all over! Isn't it? You can stand here, and you can pray to God - and I can't see what's in your heart, you can't see what's in my heart. There were idols on the throne and the altar of their hearts, but they had no outward manifestation of it like the elders in Jerusalem - but yet they were determined to retain their sins in their own hearts!
The third thing that I see in them is that they took no steps to remove the occasions for their sin. Look at verse 3, this spoke to me so specifically in my life, verse 3 is a wonderful verse: 'Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face'. Right, now, what is He saying? 'The very sin that is in your heart' - it wasn't as if they were trying to avoid falling into that temptation, but they were taking the very thing that was their pet sin, and the sin that so easy beset them, and they were setting it before their face! You run to God, don't you, and say: 'Lord, I've a terrible problem with lust', but what are you putting in front of your face? You can't put The Sun and The Star in front of your face if you have a problem with lust and you're praying to God to overcome it. My friend, we have all these sins within us, but when we put these stumbling blocks before us it's like a magnetic field that draws them out of the heart of the old man that's still residing within us!
The sin that made these men and women hypocritical prayers was that they were coming to God, and I've said it before, and saying: 'Lead me not into temptation', but their own feet were leading them into temptation! They put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Half-heartedness has been the problem of Christianity all down through the ages, and it can be seen today even in the secular world, because there is a philosophy that pervades most of society and the workplace - if you're a businessman you will have encountered this - 'I've done my duty. I've done it! I've done what you asked me'. You don't go the extra mile, you don't do one minute over, but you do right up to the exact amount of time you're meant to do. You spend and be spent about what your employer asks you, all the requirement of life and work and habit - you fulfil that and nothing more. Just enough. Most people, it would be true to say, in life would be absolutely ecstatic if in their life they were just always meeting the requirements, if they were just getting the pass mark and no more.
Now, my friend, that can pervade and filter into Christian discipleship. You hear some young people asking the question in the whole sexual realm, as they go out together: 'How far is too far?'. They ask it with regards to the world and the pubs and the clubs: 'How far is too far?'. It's asked about worldliness in the church: 'How far is too far?'. It's this concept: 'What does God expect me to do? What is the bare minimum that I can pay God, and then know that I have done just enough?'. I think we all know that that's not Christianity. I think, deep down in our hearts, we all know that God asks of us 100%. We all know what is meant to be in our lives, but the problem is that we may not be satisfied with that!
That is seen in the studies and the surveys that have taken place in recent years in the Western church. It is said generally that most Christians live their lives with little difference to those who are living in the world. Ethics in work, most Christians are no different. Sexual ethics, no difference. Moral, theological ethics - all these things compared to the world, why is it today that there seems to be no distinction? The answer can only be that there is a divided heart! Outwardly we can appear fit, we can appear orthodox, we can appear spiritually well, but it could be that beneath all the churchgoing - beneath the facade of fresh suits, and carrying of Bibles, and wearing a head covering, and using all the cliches and the 'it' words - that there are deep-seated idolatries in the hearts of believers. The Laodicean age is upon us for sure in the West, and our deeds prove that we are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm - and that we are fit only to be vomited out of the Son of God's mouth.
Yet what do we do? This is what I want you to see: when the troubles come we run to God! We want God on our side, and like Israel we seek His help, but we're not willing to give up our other options. I remember when I was going to Bible College, I came straight from school and went straight to Bible College. Men of God were saying to me, not men of God here now, but in other places were saying to me: 'Well, would you not do a year's teacher training, just in case it doesn't work out? So you've something to fall back upon'. My friend, that is the wisdom of this world, but that is not following God 100% - that is seeking Him like these Israelites, seeking Him for your help and guidance, but having your other options just behind in case He doesn't come through. It can be those cherished sins within our breast - and, my friend, it is not an option to approach God with those within us. We cannot keep one foot in the idolatrous camp of the world, and one foot in the kingdom of God - for the double minded man, you see this passage, will receive nothing from the Lord. The Lord says: 'I have nothing to say to you, and the only word that I will give to you is judgement'.
If we had time tonight we could go to the apostle James, chapter 1 verses 7 and 8 - listen to what he says: 'A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord'! The only way to deal with your idolatries is to do what God said to these people: repent! Repent! The simple act of repentance, and repentance is turning your back on any other source of hope, any other source of satisfaction or self-justification, and to find refuge in the Lord alone. It's the attitude of Toplady in his wonderful hymn:
'Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling'.