All My Bags Are Packed, I’m Ready To Go (Ezekiel 12:1-28)

Do you know your sign?

You’re probably thinking horoscope. A horoscope is an astrological forecast based on the position of celestial bodies at the time of your birth. It involves the twelve zodiac “signs,” each representing specific birth periods throughout the year. Horoscopes are typically used for entertainment or self-reflection, although some people take them more seriously, believing they offer insights into character and destiny.

It’s not harmless fun. It is a form of divination, of which God said. The Bible expressly forbids divination, sorcery, and hidden arts. We see it in our text, in verse twenty-four, where “false vision” and “flattering divination” are condemned.

We aren’t talking about the signs of the zodiac…We’re talking about the sign of Ezekiel.

“I have made you a sign to the house of Israel,” the LORD said, and “Say, ‘I am a sign to you” (v4&11).

Where do we fit in? One of the sources I consulted said, “the Church is intended to be a visible and spiritual sign that points others to God’s character and redemptive purposes.”

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 If You Are A Believer, You Are ‘Signing’ The Redemption Of The Lord, & #2 If You Are A Believer, You Are ‘Signing’ The Return Of The Lord.

#1 – If You Are A Believer, ‘Sign’ The Redemption Of The Lord (v1-16)

American Sign Language imposters were unusually prevalent for a short time.

• The Nelson Mandela Memorial Service in 2013.
• The Tampa Bay Police Department press conference in 2017.
• A Hurricane Irma press conference in 2017.

God’s prophets are the real deal when it comes to signing. Ezekiel is perhaps the most well-known, but Jeremiah (and others) performed signs.

Biblical signs and symbols are one of my favorite things to talk about. Almost everyone gets it backwards. They think signs and symbols make the Bible more difficult to read and understand.

A great many believers balk at reading or teaching the Book of the Revelation. Too many signs & symbols, they say. Not true. The signs are all clearly defined, either in the book itself or elsewhere in the Bible.

Think of the purpose of signs in your daily life, e.g., traffic signs. Are they intended to confuse? Of course not! They clarify. And they are not subject to any independent interpretation.

605BC…597BC…586BC.

Those are the years in which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded Jerusalem. Ezekiel was taken to Babylon as a captive in the second invasion. He was chosen by the LORD to be His prophet to the exiles who were already there, and to those who would come there.

A tiny bit of history is needful at this point. Nebuchadnezzar installed Zedekiah as ruler over Jerusalem. He was not the rightful king, and that’s why he is called a “prince” in verses 10&12.

Ezk 12:1  Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying:

Ezk 12:2  “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

Another day, another rejection of the Word of God and its messenger.

Have you ever considered how many of God’s prophets were unsuccessful by human standards?

⭆ All you need to know about Jeremiah is that he was called “the weeping prophet.”

⭆ Isaiah was told his audience would refuse to receive the Word.

⭆ In his defense before the first century rulers of the Jews, the martyr, Stephen, would say to them, “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers…” (Acts 7:52).

The LORD encouraged Ezekiel when He twice says the Jews are “a rebellious house.” Ezekiel was faithful to obey the LORD.

As a servant, the Lord looks for you to be faithful. You are accountable, but not responsible.

Ezk 12:3  “Therefore, son of man, prepare your belongings for captivity, and go into captivity by day in their sight. You shall go from your place into captivity to another place in their sight. It may be that they will consider, though they are a rebellious house.

The LORD was showing them what was about to happen. Nevertheless, it was not too late to repent! Ezekiel’s two-act, day/night drama might yet penetrate the rebellious hearts of the Jerusalem Jews.

We all have biases. That’s not always bad. Ours is to believe that God “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (First Peter 3:9). Your understanding of the character of God influences how you approach and interpret His Word.

Ezk 12:4  By day you shall bring out your belongings in their sight, as though going into captivity; and at evening you shall go in their sight, like those who go into captivity.

Ezk 12:5  Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry your belongings out through it.

Ezk 12:6  In their sight you shall bear them on your shoulders and carry them out at twilight; you shall cover your face, so that you cannot see the ground [We would say that he left “under cover of darkness”] for I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

Jason Bourne frequently relies on his Go-bag, stashed with passports, cash, weapons, and supplies, as he is constantly on the run and needs to be ready to bug-out at a moment’s notice. Ezekiel ‘signs’ to the Jews a man bugging-out with his go-bag.

Ezk 12:7  So I did as I was commanded. I brought out my belongings by day, as though going into captivity, and at evening I dug through the wall with my hand. I brought them out at twilight, and I bore them on my shoulder in their sight.

Ezk 12:8  And in the morning the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 12:9  “Son of man, has not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, ‘What are you doing?’

I wonder: Did these guys even try to understand the “sign”? I don’t think so. They probably wanted Ezekiel to simply tell them what the LORD said. Thing is, though, they consistently rejected God’s Word, or twisted it. Signs were the way to go.

Ezk 12:10  Say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “This burden concerns the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel who are among them.” ’

As I said, Zedekiah was not the rightful king of Judah. Ezekiel called him “prince.”

Ezk 12:11  Say, ‘I am a sign to you. As I have done, so shall it be done to them; they shall be carried away into captivity.’

Ezk 12:12  And the prince who is among them shall bear his belongings on his shoulder at twilight and go out. They shall dig through the wall to carry them out through it. He shall cover his face, so that he cannot see the ground with his eyes.

This story is told in Jeremiah and in Second Kings. All accounts agree.

Ezk 12:13  I will also spread My net over him, and he shall be caught in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans; yet he shall not see it, though he shall die there.

Ezk 12:14  I will scatter to every wind all who are around him to help him, and all his troops; and I will draw out the sword after them.

Ezk 12:15  “Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries.

“I will spread My net… My snare… I will scatter them.” Babylon would accomplish these things. The LORD was behind them, using them, to discipline His rebellious nation.

Don’t get upset about God using the godless to discipline His people. Being disciplined by God is a show of His affection.

“Yes, Gene, I get that. But their punishment was so harsh!” Was it though? What is a proper punishment for a nation that encouraged burning infant children on the molten-hot arms of an idol of Molech?

If Zedekiah was taken to Babylon, why didn’t he “see” it? Second Kings tells us why: “They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon” (25:7).

The LORD continued to bless and use the remnant of believers. You might recall that Nebuchadnezzar – who threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace – saw a fourth Person. It was Jesus. Later Nebuchadnezzar was saved. He wrote a Gospel tract that was widely circulated.

Ezk 12:16  But I will spare a few of their men from the sword, from famine, and from pestilence, that they may declare all their abominations among the Gentiles wherever they go. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.”

Do we not look upon the history of the dispersed Jews with wonder? In their discipline unbelievers see that there is a God Who loves them. Napoleon Bonaparte noted, “The existence of the Jews is proof of the existence of God.”

God’s plan is to redeem the Jews:

• Israel became a nation again.
• In the future they will enjoy a time of protection from the antichrist.
• Exactly half-way through the seven year Time of Jacob’s Trouble, the antichrist will launch the greatest persecution of Jews ever.
• Jews will be holed-up in Petra.
• They will finally call upon Jesus.
• He will save them, physically.
• The remnant that has survived will all be saved spiritually.
• The one-thousand year Kingdom of God on earth will begin.

A long time ago in a title insurance company far, far away, my bosses asked me to be involved in a pretty big lie. It was  worse than that; it was illegal. The Lord gave me the strength to say “I’m a Christian and I can’t do it.” I give Him all the glory for it. I kept trying to justify it. At that time in my life, that was a way to ‘sign’ what God’s redemption meant to me.

If we believe that the Lord is guiding our path, and that we are on it, then we need to talk to Him about our ‘sign’ where He has led us.

#2 – If You Are A Believer, ‘Sign’ The Return Of The Lord (v17-25)

Eschatology is the branch of theology that deals with the study of the last things. It’s almost always the last chapters in theology books. The apostle Paul taught it first in Thessalonica. Likewise the apostle Peter in his letters. Eschatology isn’t a curiosity, but a necessity.

Ezk 12:17  Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 12:18  “Son of man, eat your bread with quaking, and drink your water with trembling and anxiety.

Ezk 12:19  And say to the people of the land, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the land of Israel: “They shall eat their bread with anxiety, and drink their water with dread, so that her land may be emptied of all who are in it, because of the violence of all those who dwell in it.

Ezk 12:20  Then the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall become desolate; and you shall know that I am the LORD.” ’ ”

Small Jewish cities lined the way to Jerusalem. These would be the first conquered.

They would “know” because it would be the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy.

Ezk 12:21  And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 12:22  “Son of man, what is this proverb that you people have about the land of Israel, which says, ‘The days are prolonged, and every vision fails’?

Ezk 12:23  Tell them therefore, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “I will lay this proverb to rest, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel.” But say to them, “The days are at hand, and the fulfillment of every vision.

This is an OT way of saying, “Scoffers will come in the last days… saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.”^[1]

Ezk 12:24  For no more shall there be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel.

Ezk 12:25  For I am the LORD. I speak, and the word which I speak will come to pass; it will no more be postponed; for in your days, O rebellious house, I will say the word and perform it,” says the Lord GOD.’ ”

Any seeming delays do not nullify God’s plans. He’s waiting; His longsuffering waits.

Ezk 12:26  Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 12:27  “Son of man, look, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off.’

Ezk 12:28  Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “None of My words will be postponed any more, but the word which I speak will be done,” says the Lord GOD.’ ”

Do you have a go-bag? It’s tough to limit it to bare necessities.

Do we have only the bare necessities and are we ready to go to another place? For us, it is not a departure to go into exile, but to the Father’s house.

Maybe then people will ask us why we live the way we do. Then we can point them to the wrath of God that is coming upon the world, and to the Savior Who can and wants to save from it. We can sign the hope that is in us.

⭆ Signing the return of Jesus can be as casual as you coming to Church Sunday & Wednesdays. Your neighbors see you going & coming while they mow their lawns. They’ve probably been to churches that turned them off… or had a bad experience… But there you are, excited to meet with the Lord & His peeps.

⭆ Signing the return of Jesus can be more formal. Right after I got saved, I made an appointment with my philosophy prof to share the Lord with him.

We can’t tell you how to apply this in your life. The Lord can, and He will if you talk to Him about it.

Total Exchange Of The Heart (Ezekiel 11:1-25)

• “The Zionists want to become a state. But there is no place for such a state in the Arab world.”

• “There are 30 million Arabs on one side and about 600,000 Jews on the other. Why don’t you face up to the realities?”

• “To support a Jewish state in Palestine would be to antagonize the Arab world and create serious difficulties for the United States in its relations with the Arabs.”

Those strong anti-Israel statehood comments were uttered by, respectively, Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett, Defense Secretary James Forrestal, and Loy Henderson, Director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs.

I’d be surprised if you recognized the names. They served President Harry S. Truman in the late 1940s.

The advice of his closest advisors was to not recognize the statehood of Israel.

The president went against the advice of his advisors. On May 14, 1948, just 11 minutes after they declared independence, Truman made the United States the first country to recognize the modern state of Israel.

“I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now,” said Truman. “I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.”

The 6^th centuryJerusalem Jews in our chapter followed the bad advice of advisors.

Adopting a well-known Jewish adage, they assured the citizens “This city is the caldron, and we are the meat.”

The LORD responded, “These are the men who devise iniquity and give wicked counsel in this city…” Their bad advice would get thousands of Jews killed.

As we explore what was happening in 6^th century Jerusalem & Judah we will consider the effect that advice from advisors can have on us – for better or for worse.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1Proceed With Caution When You Receive Advice From Advisors, and #2 Proceed With Comfort When You Receive Advice From Your Counselor.

#1 – Proceed With Caution When You Receive Advice From Advisors (v1-12)

Twenty-five elders were giving terrible, horrible, no good, very bad advice to the citizens in Jerusalem.

King Nebuchadnezzar had twice invaded Judah, carrying off Jews to be exiled in Babylon. God’s prophet in Jerusalem, Jeremiah, was insisting that they submit to Babylon. The elders refused to consider it. They argued that God would never allow Jerusalem to be defeated & the Temple destroyed  He would… It was.

Ezekiel had been taken captive and brought to Babylon in the second of the three invasions. He was the major prophet to the Jews exiled there. We’re in the middle of a vision the LORD gave him.

Ezk 11:1  Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the East Gate of the LORD’s house [We’ve seen before that quite often God’s prophets were physically transported from one geographical location to another by the Holy Spirit; it was expected, even] which faces eastward; and there at the door of the gate were twenty-five men [These guys are a second group of twenty-five, not the priests we saw previously] among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.

Ezk 11:2  And He said to me: “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity and give wicked counsel in this city,

Ezk 11:3  who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses; this city is the caldron, and we are the meat.’

Both Jeremiah & Ezekiel were predicting a long captivity. In fact it would last 70yrs. These advisors brushed it off, giving a false hope that “The time is not near to build houses” in Babylon.

‘Caldron & meat’ was an adage employed when you wanted to emphasize that no matter the circumstances, you’d get through it safely. It’s a little like “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

The “caldron” was Jerusalem. The “meat” was the Jews. As long as you were in the city, you’d feel the heat but remain protected.

Ezk 11:4  Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man!”

Ezk 11:5  Then the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said to me, “Speak! [You may recall that Ezekiel was a voluntary mute for quite a while. He spoke only when the LORD gave him permission] ‘Thus says the LORD: “Thus you have said, O house of Israel; for I know the things that come into your mind.

Ezk 11:6  You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.”

The advice of these men would result in multitudes being “slain in” Jerusalem.

Bad advice can be lethal.

We can substitute the word “counsel” for advice. Bad counsel can cause a great deal of spiritual harm. I’ve told the sad story of a Christian woman I visited in the Mental Health ward of San Bernardino Community Hospital. She was going through a financial hardship. She approached her church leaders. They told her she was in sin for asking. If she had faith, she would not be in the spot she was in. She attempted suicide.

Ezk 11:7  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Your slain whom you have laid in its midst, they are the meat, and this city is the caldron; but I shall bring you out of the midst of it.

The LORD borrowed their illustration but gave it a different twist. Jerusalem was the “caldron,” alright, but not to keep them safe. Quite the opposite: Many in the city would die horrible deaths, as if they were dead meat boiling in the caldron.

Ezk 11:8  You have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you,” says the Lord GOD.

Ezk 11:9  “And I will bring you out of its midst, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and execute judgments on you.

Ezk 11:10  You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezk 11:11  This city shall not be your caldron, nor shall you be the meat in its midst. I will judge you at the border of Israel.

The leaders insisted everything would be OK. But when the going got tough, they got going by trying to leave Judah. They killed by the sword.

Ezk 11:12  And you shall know that I am the LORD; for you have not walked in My statutes nor executed My judgments, but have done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you.” ’ ”

God’s desire is that the Jews “know that [He] is the LORD.” Never forget when reading the Bible a bedrock principle that God is not willing that any should perish, but all come to eternal life. The LORD’s discipline would prove His love for the Jews, and preserve them to complete their abandoned  mission of being a blessing to every nation, tribe, people, and tongue on earth.

Believers should find the “customs of the Gentiles” appalling rather then appealing. Why don’t we?

Obviously there is the pull of sin upon our unredeemed physical bodies. A root cause we need to explore more-and-more is the fact that most believers do not enjoy their relationship with Jesus.

• Believers who are legalists do not enjoy Jesus. A legalist believes that their good works and obedience to God affects their salvation. Legalism focuses on God’s laws more than relationship with God. It keeps external laws without a truly submitted heart. And legalism adds human rules to divine laws and treats them as divine.
• Believers who are trying hard to live the Christian life in their own energy, rather than the enabling of the Holy Spirit, are not enjoying the Lord. My constant example of this is the plethora of self-help, how to live the Christian life books & programs. Promise Keepers, The Purpose Driven Life, The Prayer of Jabez, to name a few.

The first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”

Enjoying God is a command, not an optional extra: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Even in the worst of times.

After the one ring had been cast into the fires of Mount Doom Frodo & Sam found themselves on a boulder that was floating on hot lava. Frodo said to Sam, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.” It was tender and moving and loving and victorious.

“I’m glad to be with You, Jesus, here in my distress…or desertion… or diagnosis… In my disease… In the death or deaths of my loved ones. After all, nothing can separate me from Your love. In my human grief I suffer but not as those who have not the hope of Heaven. Contrary to how I may feel, You can never leave me or forsake me.”

#2 – Proceed With Comfort When You Receive Advice From Your Counselor (v13-25)

Jesus said that, after His departure, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26).

“Helper” can be translated “Counselor,” or “Comforter,” or “Advocate.” He is with you, and He is in you. We talk about Him coming upon you, filling you, and that’s OK as long as we remember that He is God, a Person, not a force or a power. He doesn’t come & go.

Ezk 11:13  Now it happened, while I was prophesying, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell on my face and cried with a loud voice, and said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Will You make a complete end of the remnant of Israel?”

Fausett’s Bible Dictionary offers this explanation of Pelatiah’s sudden death: “Like Ananias, [he was] stricken dead [as] an earnest of the destruction of the rest.”

Ezekiel responded to Pelatiah’s death by having a moment in which his faith wavered. Would there always be a remnant?

Of course there would! Israel must exist or God’s program of redeeming the human race and His creation would fail.

Ezk 11:14  Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 11:15  “Son of man, your brethren, your relatives, your countrymen, and all the house of Israel in its entirety, are those about whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Get far away from the LORD; this land has been given to us as a possession.’

Ezk 11:16  Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.” ’

The 25 & others in Jerusalem, because they were not taken into captivity, felt themselves superior to the ‘suckers & losers’ who had been taken. But God would exit the Temple, no longer making His presence known there.  Meanwhile He would be what He calls “a little Sanctuary” for those He scattered all over the world. In other words, the exiles would enjoy a presence of God at least preserving them that those in Jerusalem would not.

Ezk 11:17  Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” ’

Ezk 11:18  And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there.

This prophecy was partially fulfilled after the 70yr Babylonian captivity. Ezra, then Nehemiah, return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple, the walls, and the city.

The ultimate fulfillment is currently underway. Jews are back in their land and have been returning since 1948. They have a name for it – “Aliyah.” The word “aliyah” is Hebrew for ascent or rise. Jerusalem is built on a hill, to get there you must ascend & rise.

New immigrants to Israel are called olim. Nearly 30,000 olim have ‘made aliyah’ since the current conflict began.

Ezk 11:19  Then I will give them one heart [The NT writers refer to this as being baptized into the Body of Jesus, being made one with every person who shares God the Holy Spirit’s indwelling] and I will put a new spirit within them [the “new spirit” is God the Holy Spirit] and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh. [Normally the word “flesh” indicates our unredeemed physical body with its propensity to sin. Here it simply refers to life. We are alive and functioning on some level even though born with a stone heart – a heart dead to God. When saved, God gives you a heart appropriate to your new life].

Ezk 11:20  that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

This is a promise of the literal, future one-thousand year Kingdom of God on Earth. At its start, all mortal Israelites who survive the Tribulation will be saved. (As well, all Gentile believers who survive). The Lord will give them, as promised, the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

When the 1^st century Jews said “No” to Jesus, God hit ‘pause’ on establishing the one-thousand year Kingdom on earth. We live in the pause. When a person believes God and is saved, he or she is an early recipient of the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

According to the Bible Knowledge Commentary,“The inauguration of the New Covenant, which includes this permanent indwelling,^[1] began with the death of Christ,^[2] but the ultimate fulfillment awaits the national regathering of Israel. The church today is participating in the spiritual (not the physical) benefits of the covenant through its association with Jesus.”

Ezk 11:21  But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD.

You are born with a fatal heart disease, Stony Heart. The only remedy is to call upon the Lord to be saved. If you, in the end, stand before God unsaved, you are asking Him to let you enter Heaven on the basis of your “deeds.” “Recompense” means punish. If you do not have Jesus as your Savior, your deeds are insufficient, and you must be punished. Jesus took upon Himself the punishment you deserve.

Ezk 11:22  So the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was high above them.

Ezk 11:23  And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city.

A major theme in this vision was the departure from the Temple the glory of the LORD, Shekinah – the cloud that manifested His presence among His people. He left ahead of the Temple’s destruction.

Ezk 11:24  Then the Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to those in captivity. And the vision that I had seen went up from me.

Ezk 11:25  So I spoke to those in captivity of all the things the LORD had shown me.

Ezekiel returned to “Chaldea” (Babylon), and shared what the LORD had shown him with his fellow exiles. They were his mission.

Darrell Mansfield was a pioneer of Christian rock. His song, Bible Study, is fascinating. A teenager is talking to his friends and at one point he says, “Now the house is empty and my folks are gone.”

What do they decide to do? “Hey! Let’s have a Bible Study!”

When you are in love, where do you want to be? You want to be with the person you love. You’re sick over being parted.

This does not mean you can never go anywhere or do anything that isn’t overtly Christian. It does mean that wherever you go, whatever you do, you can experience the love, joy, hope, and peace of God.

“Jesus, I’m glad you are here with me”

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory Of The Leaving Of The Lord (Ezekiel 10:1-22)

Where were you when the world stopped turnin’?

Most of us recognize that as the title & the opening lyric of the Alan Jackson song. He wrote it in reaction to the terror attacks on 9/11/2001. Have you noticed that when we talk about it, we always preface our comments by giving a short account of where we were when we heard the news?

September 17^th, 592BC is a date all Israelites ought to remember.

It is the probable date on which the glory of God exited His Temple in Jerusalem. To say it was a monumental day in Jewish history should top the list of the greatest understatements of all time.

The LORD dwelt among His people in the Holy of Holies, using the Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat as a throne. The glory of God departs the Holy of Holies to the threshold of the Temple (10:4). It then moves from the Temple to the east gate of the Temple (10:18-19). Finally, it departs entirely from the city, pausing on the Mount of Olives (11:23).

Then glory was gone…and has not returned.

I’ve used a quote from A.W. Tozer too many times, but it’s so good. He challenges us, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the Church today, 95% of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference.”

Would we know the difference? The way I asked the question assumes that God the Holy Spirit has not already withdrawn.

God’s Temple departure gives us opportunity to examine the State of the Church. I’ll organize my comments around two questions: #1 Can You See God’s Withdrawing?, and #2 Can You Stop God’s Withdrawing?

#1 – Can You See God’s Withdrawing? (v1-17)

When Solomon dedicated the Temple we read, “And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud [Shekinah] filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (First Kings 8:10-11).

Fast forward 400yrs. His people spiritually & physically have turned their backs to Him. They placed abominable idols in the Temple. Like Snagglepuss, God would “exit stage north.”

It’s hard for us to understand the scope of the LORD’s departure. This was easily one of the ‘darkest’ (pun intended) days in the history of Israel.

Not just Israel. Her task was to reveal the glory of God to all nations. What happens to Israel affects all human history profoundly.

Ezk 10:1  And I looked, and there in the firmament that was above the head of the Cherubim, there appeared something like a sapphire stone, having the appearance of the likeness of a throne.

We saw this conveyance in the first chapter. We call it God’s Throne Chariot. It involves four supernatural beings, identified as Cherubim, supporting a platform upon which is a Throne for God.

Ufologists excitedly see the Throne Chariot as a spaceship piloted by alien astronauts. Among their arguments is that a 6^th century observer would have a difficult time describing spaceships.

They’re listening to way too much Coast to Coast AM Radio in the middle of the night.

Look at verse eighteen: “As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, “Wheel.” When God uses symbols & signs, He usually defines them within a few verses. In this case, there is no symbolism. “Wheels” are defined as “wheels.” It counters any suggestion that he was describing chariots of the gods. This was the chariot of God – the God of the Bible.

Are UFO’s (and USO’s) ‘real’? Of course! But what are they? Everything about the UFO phenomena, including abductions, can be explained by fallen angels prepping humans for a great deception.

Ezk 10:2  Then He spoke to the man clothed with linen, and said, “Go in among the wheels, under the cherub, fill your hands with coals of fire from among the Cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” And he went in as I watched.

Scattering the hot coals represents God’s judgment falling upon the city. It was a necessary, holy judgement. It couldn’t happen while the glory of the LORD was in the Cherubim.

Ezk 10:3  Now the Cherubim were standing on the south side of the Temple when the man went in, and the cloud filled the inner court.

Ezk 10:4  Then the glory of the LORD went up from the Cherub, and paused over the threshold of the Temple; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s glory.

Ezk 10:5  And the sound of the wings of the Cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like the voice of Almighty God when He speaks.

Scholars are split over whether or not Jews in the Temple and the surrounding area could see these phenomena. In verse five we’re told it was “heard even in the outer court.” If it was “heard” it implies there were people who heard it.

Jerusalem is situated on a hill. The people in areas surrounding the city could have seen the radiance coming from the hilltop.

It would have been beautiful, but terrifying. Shekinah stayed put in the Holy of Holies.

Ezk 10:6  Then it happened, when He commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, “Take fire from among the wheels, from among the Cherubim,” that he went in and stood beside the wheels.

Ezk 10:7  And the Cherub stretched out his hand from among the Cherubim to the fire that was among the Cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed with linen, who took it and went out.

Ezk 10:8  The Cherubim appeared to have the form of a man’s hand under their wings.

This is an incredibly detailed description. True, it is hard to depict, and if you search for images they are mostly too weird. Ezekiel was not confused. He knew what he was seeing.

Ezk 10:9  And when I looked, there were four wheels by the Cherubim, one wheel by one cherub and another wheel by each other cherub; the wheels appeared to have the color of a beryl stone.

Ezk 10:10  As for their appearance, all four looked alike – as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

Ezk 10:11  When they went, they went toward any of their four directions; they did not turn aside when they went, but followed in the direction the head was facing. They did not turn aside when they went.

Ezk 10:12  And their whole body, with their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels that the four had, were full of eyes all around.

Ezk 10:13  As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, “Wheel.”

I can almost hear someone asking Ezekiel what the wheels represent, and him answering, “They were wheels.”

Ezk 10:14  Each one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, the second face the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

In chapter one the Cherubim had faces of lion, eagle, man & ox. Here the ox is replaced by “the face of a Cherub.”  The simple answer is that the face of a Cherub looks like the face of a bull or an ox. Cherubs are not little baby angels with wings.

Ezk 10:15  And the Cherubim were lifted up. This was the living creature I saw by the River Chebar.

Ezk 10:16  When the Cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the Cherubim lifted their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also did not turn from beside them.

Ezk 10:17  When the Cherubim stood still, the wheels stood still, and when one was lifted up, the other lifted itself up, for the spirit of the living creature was in them.

It sounds like they had on the new  $400,000.00 helmets our courageous F35 pilots have.

Remembering back to 9-11, can you imagine a scenario where you saw the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and then went about your business as if nothing monumental had occurred?   

The Jerusalem Jews kept committing their abominations as if nothing of any real significance had occurred.

Unlike OT Israel, every NT believer receives the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t come & go.

What can happen is this:

• A believer who begins in the Spirit can try to live the Christian life in his or her own energy. The apostle Paul put it this way, “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).
• A Church that begins in the Spirit can, according to Jesus, leave their first love for Him. If it persists, the Lord says He will withdraw that Church’s “lampstand.” Intellect will begin to overwhelm intimacy. Thus it becomes works-oriented rather than grace-sufficient. D.L. Moody said, “The Bible was not given for our information, but for our transformation.”

You can see this shift. The Tozer quote has a second part: “If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

• Paul saw it in Galatia.
• Jesus saw it in Ephesus.

One of the great questions we hear every presidential election is, “Are you better off today than you were 4yrs ago?”

We can ask, “Am I farther along spiritually today than when I first was saved?” Or, “Is my life characterized by my plans for it or God’s?”

#2 – Can You Stop God’s Withdrawing? (v18-22)

There is something quite important to notice in God’s withdrawal. The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary says,

Successive steps are marked in His departure; so slowly and reluctantly does the merciful God leave His house. First, He goes up from the Cherub, whereupon He was, to the Threshold of the Temple (9:3); then He elevates His throne above the Threshold of the house (10:1); leaving the Cherubim ‘on the right side of the house’ (10:3). Then He mounts up and sits on the throne (10:4); He and the Cherubim, after standing for a time at the door of the east gate (10:18-19), where was the exit to the lower court of the people – leave the house altogether (11:2-3), not to return until Ezekiel 43:2.

Reluctant to leave, the LORD made significant pauses during His departure. He loved (and loves) Israel with an everlasting love. He desired their repentance. He made a spectacular exit, pausing. They paid it no mind. The pauses could have, as we say, “given them pause,” to repent.

We need to establish that this idea of our human disobedience causing pauses along the redemption timeline is Scriptural.

• God hit ‘pause’ for Abram. He was told to go to Bethel. He went, but on account of a famine, he headed to Egypt. It was a thirteen year pause until he got back to where he once belonged.

• God hit ‘pause’ for the Exodus generation. The Hebrews who Exodus-ed balked at the border of the Promised Land. Their refusal to go in stalled the Jews for a period of 40yrs.

In the NT, the apostle Peter has a rather unusual approach to the passage of divine time and it involves at least one very long pause.

• He first reminds us that what we consider to be a long time is a mere day with the Lord (Second Peter 3:8).
• Next he tells us that, although the Lord could come at any time, His longsuffering with sinners waits giving them opportunities to repent and be saved.
• While He is waiting, we are told we can “hasten,” meaning speed-up, His return.

Ezk 10:18  Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the Temple and stood over the Cherubim.

Ezk 10:19  And the Cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

After 400 years of being among His people, Shekinah was gone.

Ezk 10:20  This is the living creature I saw under the God of Israel by the River Chebar, and I knew they were Cherubim.

Ezk 10:21  Each one had four faces and each one four wings, and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.

Ezk 10:22  And the likeness of their faces was the same as the faces which I had seen by the River Chebar, their appearance and their persons. They each went straight forward.

Here is a quote from Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Däniken: “The time has come for us to admit our insignificance by making discoveries in the infinite unexplored cosmos. Only then shall we realize that we are nothing but ants in the vast state of the universe.”

I prefer what David said: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet…” (Psalm 8:3-6).

The glory of God returned briefly when Jesus came. The apostle John said, “And the Word became 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” (1:14).

Jesus came preaching that the Kingdom of God on earth was at hand. It was; unfortunately the Jews hard-passed on Jesus being their King.

Their rejection marked the beginning of God’s longest pause.

Paul describes the pause in the last chapter of the Book of Acts, “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” (28:28).^[1]

Paul goes on to explain that God is using the salvation of Gentiles in the Church Age to make the nation of Israel jealous. In the end, with clarity and all Heaven’s authority, Paul said, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26).

He means ethnic Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob.

We are living in the longest historic pause – The Church Age.

Let’s live continuing in the Spirit and rekindling our first love.

Inka Dinka Do You Have His Mark On You? (Ezekiel 9:1-11)

The Nazi’s tattooed the Jews held captive in Auschwitz for purposes of administration.

Combinations of numbers & letters communicated information about their time of arrival to the camp or transfers from another camp.

Holocaust survivors often speak of how the tattoo symbolized their loss of humanity and individuality during their time in the camps.

It wasn’t the first time in their history that Jews were ‘marked.’

In the sixth century BC a man with an inkhorn was sent throughout Jerusalem assigned to ‘mark’ Jews. But unlike the Holocaust, it was an exceedingly good thing to be marked. You wanted to be marked.

Those with the mark on their foreheads were the remnant of righteous Jews. They would be spared from being slain when the Babylonians came the third & final time to loot & level Jerusalem and the Temple.

The remnant to be supernaturally marked was marked by their “sigh[ing] and  cry[ing]” over the abominations that were done within” the Temple.

There doesn’t seem to be any direct corollary to make between the Jews being marked and Church Age believers being marked. We can, however, always contemplate versions of the question, “What is the mark of a believer?”

Let’s do that! I’ll organize my comments around two questions: #1 What Marks You In Public?, and #2 What Marks You In Private?

#1 – What Marks You In Public? (v1-8)

What is the mark of a Christian?

It’s not one thing, but there is one thing that Jesus said was fundamental. He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

The love Jesus spoke of would be observable.

Francis Schaeffer, in a small book appropriately titled, The Mark of a Christian, concludes, “The world has a right to look upon us as true Christians, and it should be able to observe that we do love each other. Our love must have a form that the world may observe; it must be seeable.”

You may not get around to reading Schaeffer, so let me tell you how he says you exercise observable love. “It means a very simple thing: It means that when I have made a mistake and when I have failed to love my Christian brother, I go to him and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ That is first. It may seem a letdown – that the first thing we speak of should be so simple! But if you think it is easy, you have never tried to practice it.”

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God… When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.”

Among the things that are noteworthy about the marking in our Ezekiel passage is that it is based on observable public behavior. God knows the hearts of all men. You’d think He would have given the man with the inkhorn a list of names. No, he was tasked with observing their outward behavior.

Ezk 9:1  Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, “Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand.”

Ezk 9:2  And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer’s inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

He called for “six men,” who by their description and duties we understand to be supernatural, likely angels. They were the original Seal Team Six.

They are said to “have charge over the city.” Every now and then we get a glimpse of the supernatural:

• In the Book of Daniel we see that the angel Gabriel was detained by a mighty supernatural, called the Prince of Persia, until Michael the archangel came along to relieve him.
• Elijah asks God to open the eyes of his servant to see the heavenly armies surrounding and protecting them.
• Here in Ezekiel we see that six mighty angels had charge over Jerusalem.

Reading about these things some believers have concluded that there are territorial spirits and that we must identify them and go to spiritual battle against them.

That’s a huge unscriptural leap into weirdness.

Angels fight angels but we do not. If you want to do battle, you’re told how in the Revelation. We read of God’s saints, “they overcame [the devil] by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, they loved not their lives unto death.”

The angels who had charge over Jerusalem were reassigned to carry out judgment against the Jews. They chose from their armory “battle-axes.” They go through the Temple and the city slaughtering Jews.

About 200yrs before Ezekiel Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian army. One night as they slept, the Angel of the Lord went through their camp killing. In the morning, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were dead.

In our passage, they donʼt personally slaughter Jews. The Babylonian army will slaughter the Jews when the siege ends and they breech the walls. Ezekiel’s vision is a representation in Heaven of the LORD’s providential actions on Earth. This is what the overthrow of Jerusalem looks like in heavenly terms.

Ezk 9:3  Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the Temple…

The Temple was Solomon’s Temple – and it was magnificent. Its most amazing feature was Shekinah. That is what we call the radiant cloud that resided in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, on the Mercy Seat flanked by carved images of Cherubim. God was thereby among them.

Soon they would say, “God has left the building.”

Ezk 9:3  … And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side;

Ezk 9:4  and the LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

If you’ve had something notarized, the notary has a ledger and a pen and an ink pad for fingerprinting.

The full title of a Notary is Notary Public. This supernatural was one of, or maybe the only, Notary in Heaven. His work on this occasion was to notarize the public behavior of the Jews who sighed & cried.

Ezk 9:5  To the others He said in my hearing, “Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.

Ezk 9:6  Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the Temple.

We don’t need to act as if the wholesale slaughter of people, including women and kids, doesn’t trouble us. It should greatly trouble us.

Two things to consider:

1. Jeremiah distinctly said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes over to the Chaldeans shall live; his life shall be as a prize to him, and he shall live. This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall take it.’ ” No one need die. No women or children. They chose to allow their children to die.
2. These episodes serve as reminders that the God of the Bible is infinitely holy while we, by our own choice, are sinful. We chose sin and death.  Apart from Jesus, all of mankind is conceived in sin and death. God acted immediately to save us, enacting an ambitious plan that involves Him suffering on our behalf.

It isn’t remarkable that sinners would be slaughtered, but rather that God has made a way for us to be reconciled to Him, and the majority reject it, choosing death.

• My first thought about tragedy shouldn’t be, “How could God allow this?”
• My first thought ought to be, “Thank you, Lord, that you’ve made a way out of this and into bliss!”

Ezk 9:7  Then He said to them, “Defile the Temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” And they went out and killed in the city.

Nothing defiled a Jew more than contact with a dead body. This vision of the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, and the courts of the Temple would horrify even the most backslidden Jew.

The Jerusalem Jews thought it inconceivable the the LORD would allow His beloved city and its Temple to be destroyed. They were wrong.

Do you have any inconceivables? It’s not a fair question because often you don’t  know that you have an inconceivable until the inconceivable happens.

The question we must each ask of ourself is some variation of, “Are the things that ‘mark’ my public life consistent with how a Christian ought to be living in the Church Age?”

Should we be sighing and crying? Not necessarily. That was the mark of a believer in the sixth century BC. We live in a very different dispensation.

The apostle Peter encouraged us to behave according to our times. He said, “What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God… according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new Earth in which righteousness dwells… looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless” (Second Peter 3:11-14).

Schaeffer wrote, “The world is going to judge whether Jesus has been sent by the Father on the basis of something that is open to observation.”

A major observable mark is “holiness,” separation from the world. Not a withdrawal from the world, but keeping ourselves from being overwhelmed by it.

#2 – What Marks You In Private? (v8-11)

With the supernaturals off on their marking ministry, Ezekiel finds himself alone with the LORD. What was the prophet like in private? What ‘marked’ him?

Ezk 9:8  So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?”

Ezekiel only prays for the remnant. He understood that the time for the majority of Jews to repent was passed.

If a remnant did not survive, all of God’s plans would fall like a house of cards. The promised Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world would be God come in human flesh. The human flesh that He would come into was Jewish. Israel would produce the Messiah, the Savior. Ezekiel knew this, at least in part, and was worried that things were getting awfully precarious.

Where have we heard something similar to his prayer before? When God came with two angels who would go on to destroy wicked Sodom & Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God to not destroy the cities if ten righteous could be found there. He negotiated with the LORD, somewhat successfully in that Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and his family were removed from the cities before they were burned.

Ezekiel was conducting a negotiation, or trying to. He would be altogether unsuccessful. We would put this in the bin marked, Prayers God said “No” to.

All of us have uttered prayers that we are glad God did not answer. Nevertheless, we still find it difficult that He is saying “No” to what we are asking for today.

Ezk 9:9  Then He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see!’

Following King Solomon’s death, Israel split into two countries: Israel & ten tribes to the north, Judah & two tribes to the south. The LORD sees both “houses” back as one nation.

Ezk 9:10  And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head.”

The LORD must punish sin. He would not be God if He were not holy, holy, holy. There could be no Heaven. No salvation.

He took upon Himself human flesh so He could die as the final sacrifice for sin, in our place. He substituted Himself for us. The result of Him being lifted up on the Cross at Calvary is that He has the power to draw all men to Himself. He is the Savior of the whole world – especially of those who believe.

Ezk 9:11  Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, “I have done as You commanded me.”

Mission accomplished – Remnant safe & sound.

Jews will be marked again. In the Revelation we are introduced to 144,000 Jews, 12,000 from each from the 12 tribes. They are “sealed” on their “foreheads.” As a result, they cannot be harmed during the Great Tribulation.

I want to mention one other thing that marks a believer in the Church Age. The apostle Paul writes, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

Jesus had specific marks in His body, e.g., the wound in His side where the Roman soldier pierced Him on the Cross. Paul was beaten numerous times. He mentions receiving “forty lashes minus one” from the Jews on five occasions and being beaten with rods three times (Second Corinthians 11:24-25).

Francis Schaeffer said to start with forgiveness. Is there someone who’s forgiveness you need to ask? Are you unforgiving of anyone? As long as unforgiveness persists, believers and unbelievers will not observe the Lord in your life.

Who are you in private? Let the Lord show you what He observes in you. Repent as necessary.

Always bear this in mind: After grief for sin there should be joy for forgiveness.

Dig Dug (Ezekiel 8:1-18)

I don’t feel any less masculine in telling you that I once binge-watched all six hours of the 1995 BBC version of Pride & Prejudice.

Jane Austin masterfully portrayed a noble, almost pure, form of jealousy. Mr. Darcy exhibits it towards Elizabeth Bennet, not in a possessive sense, but in a way that motivates him to protect her from unworthy suitors.

Do you ever think of God as being jealous?

In the Book of Exodus God told His people, “Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)” (34:12-14).

God is so jealous for believers. He says it is His name.

His jealousy for His people is prominent in our text:

• In verse three He describes “the seat of the image of jealousy… which provokes [Him] to jealousy.”
• In verse five, “north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.”

We were created to worship Him, with eternity in our hearts. Nothing & no one else can ever satisfy us. Everything else we gravitate towards is a form of idolatry and will only, ultimately, destroy us.

Among the many names for God, don’t overlook “Jealous.” I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Jealous Is Determined In His Jealousy For You, and #2 Jealous Is Devoted In His Jealously For You.

#1 – Jealous Is Determined In His Jealousy For You (v1-16)

One of the commentators I read used this illustration:

God is jealous like a powerful and merciful king who takes a peasant girl from a life of shame, forgives her, marries her, and gives her not the chores of a slave, but the privileges of a wife. His jealousy does not rise from fear or weakness but from a holy indignation at having His honor and power and mercy scorned by the faithlessness of a fickle spouse.

Ezk 8:1  And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there.

Where were you on 9/11?

You remember precisely where you were on account of its national significance. The vision that spans the next several chapters had 9-11 national significance to Ezekiel. In it he would witness one of the most lamentable events in Jewish history. He was shown the departure of the glory of the LORD from the Temple.

The exiled Jews were not put to slave labor. Ezekiel had his own house. Don’t get me wrong: They were captives. But they were comfortable captives, so much so that when Persia liberated them to return home, most stayed put in Babylon.

The “elders of Judah” were the layman appointed to serve as the leaders among the exiles. It goes back to Moses being told to choose 70 elders to help govern the Jews in their Exodus.

I would like to think that they met often to discuss their situation.

Tomorrow when you go to work and someone asks, “How was your weekend?” I dare you to say, “I went to church and the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there.”

We struggle to express exactly how God ‘speaks’ to us because, after all, it is supernatural. It’s OK.

Ezk 8:2  Then I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire – from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber.

We call this Person a Theophany. It is an OT appearance of the Second Person of the tri-une God. It is Jesus.

Why “fire” & “amber?” Don’t know. We can say that the Lord is always dressed for the part.

Ezk 8:3  He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem…

I want you to picture John the Baptist. As a life-long member of the Nazarite Vow club, his hair had never been cut.

Picture him again. Is it far-fetched to suggest that he braided his hair? Did he have dreadlocks?

Samson was a life-long Nazarite. He told Delilah, “weave the seven locks of my head into the web of the loom…” He came to her already with seven locks of braided hair that she wove together into one.

Ezekiel wasn’t grabbed by the hair & dragged up & off. This Person, for some reason, simply took hold of Ezekiel’s hair. Then the Holy Spirit “lifted him.” (Can we say he was hair-lifted to the Temple?).

It is unclear if Ezekiel was removed bodily, or if he saw all this in his mind. It was not uncommon for OT prophets to be removed bodily from one location to another.

Ezk 8:3  He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy.

There is no information about this “image.” It was an idol or statue or object of some kind that represented a pagan god or goddess. It was so-called because it’s presence in God’s house provoked Him.

Ezk 8:4  And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain.

At its dedication, the LORD put His presence in the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple. He was there as Shekinah – a shining cloud of glory.

How can a person see Shekinah, recall all the history & miracles related to it, but turn from it to worship a lifeless object made by his/her hands?

Here is a more pressing question: How can you and I, who have God the Holy Spirit indwelling us, sin as if He isn’t present?

Ezk 8:5  Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.

The “altar gate” most likely refers to the aforementioned North Gate. It provided access to the area near the altar of burnt offering, where priests performed sacrifices.

Ezk 8:6  Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.”

Did you catch what He said? “To make Me go far away from My sanctuary?” This is a build-up to the LORD leaving the Holy of Holies for good. From the destruction of the Temple in 586BC until the arrival of Jesus on Earth in the 1^st century, the glory of the LORD departed from Earth. When the Lord Jesus departed, ascending to Heaven, His Church on Earth became the Temple. We have in us, indwelling us, God the Holy Spirit. We reveal the glory of God until He comes for us, to snatch us home to Heaven.

We are shown expressions of idolatry among three groups of Jews: Elders, women, and priests.

Ezk 8:7  So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall.

Ezk 8:8  Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.

Ezk 8:9  And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.”

Ezekiel was shown a hidden entrance to a secret room. You might say he “did a little digging” to discover it.

Ezk 8:10  So I went in and saw, and there – every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls.

Most commentators see this as Egyptian art. That makes sense because the political leaders in Jerusalem were making an alliance with Egypt to overthrow Babylon. It would fail, and was a reason why Nebuchadnezzar made a third siege on Jerusalem, destroying it.

Ezk 8:11  And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up.

There was no Sanhedrin at that time in Israel’s history. These 70 were lay-leaders, just like the guys at Ezekiel’s house in Babylon. In their case they were leading in abominations.

Shaphan was the scribe who read God’s Law to King Josiah when it was rediscovered in the Temple. It incited one of the greatest revivals in Israel’s history. Yet here Shaphan was, just a few years after, incensing-up with a secret room full of idolaters.

They were a secret society. Archaeologists have recently discovered their title – The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.

Ezk 8:12  Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’ ”

Instead of understanding their plight as their own choosing, they Jerusalem Jews blamed God. For such destruction to occur must mean God had withdrawn from them.

What about you & I? Since we have received the promise of the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, we cannot ever be forsaken, and the Spirit is in us wherever we go, whatever we do.

One thing we do is reduce the Spirit to an influence or an ability. We know the doctrine – that He is a Person. But when we sin, we are not behaving according to our beliefs.

Think of it this way:

• If God the Holy Spirit is an influence and an ability, then I can draw from it anytime I want. When I want to sin, I simply ignore my ability to not sin.
• If God the Holy Spirit is a Person – which He is – I cannot sin without defying Him and grieving Him.

We really must have a more robust understanding of the Personhood of the Spirit;

• Pentecostals tend to treat the Spirit as a force.
• Cessationists tend to equate Him with the Bible. Their critics say they worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible.

One reformed theologian said this: “Do you know who the Holy Spirit is? Do you understand the Holy Spirit in terms of a personal relationship? Or does the Spirit remain for you a vague, misty, abstract concept or an illusive, amorphous force? Forces in and of themselves are impersonal. But the Holy Spirit is not simply an abstract force. He is a person.”

Ezk 8:13  And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.”

Ezk 8:14  So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

Tammuz spent part of the year in the underworld and part on earth. It ‘explained’ the seasonal cycle, with winter representing his death and spring his return to life.

In addition to idol worship, the Jewish women were in a part of the Temple God had made ‘off limits’ for them. Pagan gods afforded opportunity for women to ignore their biblical roles & responsibilities. It all seemed so modern, so progressive.

The roles & responsibilities of men & women in the home, in the church, in public, are set by God. The roles of women are subordinate to men. It doesn’t make women inferior. It establishes an order that best communicates the Gospel.

Ezk 8:15  Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.”

Ezk 8:16  So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.

These are the priests. They literally turned their backs on the LORD to worship the sun itself, or a sun god.

The Jews didn’t start with abominations everywhere. It crept in. The old illustration is this: If an airplane is off course by just 1° after an hour of flying it will be about 1 mile off course. The further it flies, the more that small error compounds. Over the span of a 60-mile journey, it would be a mile off course, but over thousands of miles, that minor deviation would lead the plane hundreds of miles away from its intended destination.

Stay on course…Or make the necessary course corrections.

#2 – Jealous Is Devoted In His Jealously For You (v17-18)

Sorry, but the word “devoted” in a romantic context takes me to the musical, Grease, and Sandy singing, Hopelessly Devoted to You.

OK; I’m over it!

Ezk 8:17  And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose.

Ezk 8:18  Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

They “returned” from the short-lived reforms under King Josiah. Revival is great; but often it proves fleeting. It must take root in a pursuit of holiness and, especially, the prominence of the Bible.

Are you wondering about the phrase, “they put the branch to their nose?” It is believed to be a derogatory gesture. They gave God the bird!

These last two verses make God out to be more of a destroyer than devoted. Take into mind the whole context of Ezekiel. Yes Jerusalem and the Temple were to be looted and leveled. Many Jews would die violent deaths. Their captivity would last for 70 years in Babylon. But all of this is in the context of bringing His people to repent, rebuilding their Temple, and returning to his steadfast love for them. Israel is the apple of God’s eye.

Despite their almost constant failure through history, Paul the apostle can declare, “I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew… All Israel will be saved… They are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

God is every bit as jealous for you. He loves the church and gave Himself for us, that He might sanctify and cleanse us with the washing of water by the word, that He might present us to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that we should be holy and without blemish. He is able to keep us from stumbling, And to present us faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

I Hear The Chain A-comin, It’s Comin’ Means The End (Ezekiel 7:1-27)

“I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard.”

Recognize the quote? Sure you do. It’s Jacob Marley’s ghost answering his former partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, who asked it, “You are fettered. Tell me why?”

Charles Dickens based A Christmas Carol on the passage in the Gospel of Luke concerning the rich man & Lazarus. He was deeply influenced by Christian teachings, and biblical themes permeate much of his work.

I wonder if he came up with the idea of Marley’s chain from reading Ezekiel?

Look at verse twenty-three: “Make a chain, For the land is filled with crimes of blood, And the city is full of violence.”

Ezekiel went around dragging a chain to signify the inevitable Babylonian invasion of Judea & the captivity of the Jews.

Marley’s chain is described as being “made of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, and deeds.” These items are attached to the chain, rattling as it is dragged along.

The items symbolized Marley’s true love – mammon, the wealth of this world.

I suggest that Ezekiel’s chain was similarly “made” from things that were symbols of the nation’s sins. I think that because Ezekiel provides a list:

1. He mentions their “abominations” (v3, 4, 8, 9 & 20).
2. He mentions “a rod” that blossoms (v10).
3. He mentions their property (v12 & 13).
4. There’s a “trumpet” (v14).
5. “Sackcloth” (v18).
6. “Silver & gold” (v19). And,
7. “Ornaments” (v20).

As Ezekiel walked around dragging this chain with stuff attached to it, the Jews had a visual of the things marking their rebellion.

NT believers are once-for-all unchained by virtue of being in Christ. We may, however, still return to things that once held us captive:

• The apostle John wrote, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (First John 5:21).
• The apostle Paul wrote, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality” (First Thessalonians 4:3).

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1The Way You Live Can Show What It Is Like To Be Working For The Lord, and #2 The Way You Live Can Show What It Is Like To Be Waiting For The Lord.

#1 The Way That You Live Can Show What It Is Like To Be Working For The Lord (v1-23)

Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Working for the Lord isn’t work. It will be physically demanding, emotionally draining, spiritually oppressive. But even if I am chained in a Philippian dungeon, suffering from a thorn in my flesh, I can praise my Lord.

Ezekiel is God’s prophet to 6^th century Jews who were relocated and resettled in Babylon. He was taken there in the second of three sieges. He was tasked with announcing to the exiles that in the final invasion, Jerusalem and the Temple would be looted & leveled.

Two prominent declarations are made in this chapter:

1. God tells them it is “the end” six times, most forcefully in verse six, “An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come!” He furthermore says “it has come,” “doom has come,” “the time has come,” “a day of trouble is near,” “the day draws near,” and “destruction comes.”
2. Simultaneously God said 3x, “then you shall know that I am the LORD.” (We also heard this 4x in chapter six).

Ezk 7:1  Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 7:2  “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: ‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

Ezk 7:3  Now the end has come upon you, And I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations.

Ezk 7:4  My eye will not spare you, Nor will I have pity; But I will repay your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst; Then you shall know that I am the LORD!’

God’s longsuffering with their sins was over. Their punishment was determined. Personal repentance was possible, but it was too late for the nation.

“I will repay.” That’s an unusual word choice. A debtor repays the lender. God is no debtor, so it can’t mean that. The word is also used, to square accounts. We say, “Are we square now?”

In the case of the Judean Jews, it meant that they were receiving precisely what they deserved at the hand of God – no more & no less. For example, their captivity would last 70yrs. That was the exact amount of years the Jews owed the LORD for their sin of not letting their land lie unplanted every 7^th year.

Twice God calls them out for their “abominations.” This was their worship of idols in which they participated in the Gentile rites involving perversions of all manner and child sacrifice.

One of our working definitions for idolatry is any person, place, or thing I substitute for the sufficiency of God in my life.

Their fall & their fettering was the discipline of a loving Father. It was severe, but loving. No discipline seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

They would know that He was the LORD on account of His faithfulness to discipline them. It was proof of His love. It would testify to them, and to the Gentile nations, a love so true.

God is either discipling you…or disciplining you.

Ezk 7:5  “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘A disaster, a singular disaster; Behold, it has come!

Ezk 7:6  An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come!

Ezk 7:7  Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; The time has come, A day of trouble is near, And not of rejoicing in the mountains.

Ezk 7:8  Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, And spend My anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations.

Ezk 7:9  ‘My eye will not spare, Nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the LORD who strikes.

In the “mountains” you’d find them at shrines, worshipping the idols. Twice more the LORD mentions their “abominations.”

Ezk 7:10  ‘Behold, the day! Behold, it has come! Doom has gone out; The rod has blossomed, Pride has budded.

Ezk 7:11  Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness; None of them shall remain, None of their multitude, None of them; Nor shall there be wailing for them.

The “rod” represented “pride.” In Jerusalem, Jeremiah urged them to submit to Babylon. Had they submitted, they would have been spared. Instead, their pride incited the “violence” of the third invasion.

If you search the Internet for ‘how does pride manifest itself,’ you’ll see that there are seven ways, or 15 ways, or 30 ways. Do your own digging! Ask the Lord to show you how you manifest pride.

Ezk 7:12  The time has come, The day draws near. ‘Let not the buyer rejoice, Nor the seller mourn, For wrath is on their whole multitude.

Ezk 7:13  For the seller shall not return to what has been sold, Though he may still be alive; For the vision concerns the whole multitude, And it shall not turn back; No one will strengthen himself Who lives in iniquity.

“Sellers returning to what has been sold” is one of the things that occurred during the Jewish Year of Jubilee. Observed every 50th year, was a time when debts were forgiven, enslaved individuals were freed, and ancestral land was returned to its original owners. The captivity in Babylon would last 70yrs. They would miss at least one and possibly two Jubilee years.

Ezk 7:14  ‘They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready, But no one goes to battle; For My wrath is on all their multitude.

Ezk 7:15  The sword is outside, And the pestilence and famine within. Whoever is in the field Will die by the sword; And whoever is in the city, Famine and pestilence will devour him.

The “trumpet” signified the LORD fighting for them. When Assyria came against them, the Angel of the LORD killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. Not this time.

Ezk 7:16  ‘Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains Like doves of the valleys, All of them mourning, Each for his iniquity.

Ezk 7:17  Every hand will be feeble, And every knee will be as weak as water.

Ezk 7:18  They will also be girded with sackcloth; Horror will cover them; Shame will be on every face, Baldness on all their heads.

“Sackcloth” and “baldness” communicated inner shame. These tenderhearted Jews were the remnant, the believing Jews. They could rejoice in their preservation. Nevertheless they were without homes and the prescribed place to worship.

Ezk 7:19  ‘They will throw their silver into the streets, And their gold will be like refuse; Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them In the day of the wrath of the LORD; They will not satisfy their souls, Nor fill their stomachs, Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.

Ezk 7:20  ‘As for the beauty of his ornaments, He set it in majesty; But they made from it The images of their abominations – Their detestable things; Therefore I have made it Like refuse to them.

Ezk 7:21  I will give it as plunder Into the hands of strangers, And to the wicked of the earth as spoil; And they shall defile it.

Ever since I was a kid, television commercials have hammered me to buy gold. But if a bag of gold is necessary to buy a loaf of Ezekiel bread, am I really rich?

Ezk 7:22  I will turn My face from them, And they will defile My secret place; For robbers shall enter it and defile it.

We will watch in upcoming chapters as God’s glory, the Shekinah, exits the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple. Babylonians will enter, defiling it by their mere presence.

We’ve mentioned previously that the church in Ephesus was warned that they would lose their testimony unless they repented of leaving their first love.

Ezk 7:23  ‘Make a chain, For the land is filled with crimes of blood, And the city is full of violence.

Ezekiel lists items from which he ‘makes’ the chain. Maybe he added them each day to be dramatic. An idol… A budding rod… Maybe a deed to property that was unable to be redeemed… A military trumpet… Sackcloth… and Ornaments. Go through the chapter again & you can discover other items, e.g., a “sword” (v15), “doves” (v16), and “silver” & “gold” (v19).

1. If God told believers to make such a chain to represent what is going on in our country, what objects or items would be attached to it?
2. If God asked you (or I) to make a chain for ourselves, what would we be dragging along?

#2 – The Way You Live Can Show What It Is Like To Be Waiting For The Lord (v24-27)

In disaster movies there is usually a nod to someone holding a sign, Repent for the end is near!

This chapter reads as if God’s message was more urgent. You come away thinking, “The End is here!”

Imminence is living as if the thing the LORD has revealed could occur right now.

Scoffers mock us, and thereby God, saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?” It is being held back by a crazy little thing called love. Specifically the aspect of the Lord’s love He describes as longsuffering – His unwillingness that any should perish, but that they receive eternal life.

Ezk 7:24  Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles, And they will possess their houses; I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease, And their holy places shall be defiled.

Ezk 7:25  Destruction comes; They will seek peace, but there shall be none.

Ezk 7:26  Disaster will come upon disaster, And rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; But the law will perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders.

Ezk 7:27  ‘The king will mourn, The prince will be clothed with desolation, And the hands of the common people will tremble. I will do to them according to their way, And according to what they deserve I will judge them; Then they shall know that I am the LORD!’ ”

“I will do to them according to their way” is an OT version of something we hear in the first chapter of Romans. There the apostle Paul says, 3x, “Therefore God also gave them up…” The LORD reacts to our choices and will give us what we want, to our detriment.

Some scholars see references to the End Times & the 7yr Great Tribulation. Ezekiel has plenty of future stuff… but not here. This is all about the Babylonian captivity.

I’ve mentioned over this past year a move among believers away from the pre-Tribulation resurrection & rapture of the church. Part of their argument is that imminence doesn’t mean any-moment. They argue from various texts that imminent means near, not right now.

It would seem Ezekiel agrees:

➽ He writes, “Behold, it has come! An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come! Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; The time has come.”

➽ But he also writes, “A day of trouble is near, And not of rejoicing in the mountains. Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury.”

How is the End both now & near?

The Lord is suggesting a new way of thinking.

The Lord could come right now… He didn’t, so His coming is what? Nearer than it was a moment ago.

This has a practical application. The apostle Paul taught the imminent resurrection & rapture of the church to the believers in Thessalonica. A problem arose. There were believers who figured, since the rapture could occur any moment, they should quit working and wait for the Lord. Over time, they became a burden on the church. Paul responded by saying, “No work, no eat!”

I believe it is the teaching of Scripture that the Lord could come any moment to snatch His church to Heaven. As we wait, we are to make plans, pressing forward with the Gospel, because His coming is nearer than before.

Now & nearer…Learn to wait in that dynamic.

Stamp! In The Name Of Love. Before They Break My Heart. (Ezekiel 6:1-14)

What are your thoughts on impassibility?

Impassibility is the teaching that God does not experience pain, suffering, or emotional changes as humans do. It asserts that God is not subject to external influences or feelings, maintaining His perfect, unchanging nature while still being loving and involved with His creation.

Can God experience pain and suffering due to our sin? Is He affected by our actions? Does He react to us?

We come across passages in the Bible that assume we do emotionally affect God… Like today.

The LORD illustrates His experience with the nation of Israel as that of a faithful Husband married to an unfaithful wife, playing the harlot, being whorish, committing spiritual adultery.

He says of Himself, “I was crushed.” 

Other Bible versions translate it, “I have been broken” (ESV), “I have been hurt” (NASB), “I have been grieved” (NIV), and “How broken I have been” (Complete Jewish Bible).

If the LORD cannot be affected by our behavior, this illustration has zero impact.

Israel is front & center. Nevertheless we can’t help thinking about ourselves because the Lord thinks of the Church as His bride. In his letter, James warns about spiritual adultery in the Church (James 4:4-5).

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1God Reacts To Your Unfaithfulness With Pressure, and #2 God Responds To Your Faithfulness With Protection.

#1 – God Reacts To Your Unfaithfulness With Pressure (v1-7&11-14)

On January 1^st 1970 California became the first state to recognize No-Fault Divorce.

When a couple divorces, they cite Irreconcilable Differences. God cannot check that box. He sees His people as reconcilable. He has made the way for reconciliation.

Ezk 6:1  Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying:

Ezk 6:2  “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them,

Ezk 6:3  and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: “Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.

Ezk 6:4  Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken…

The “mountains,” “hills,” “ravines,” and “valleys” were the locations of the “high places,” “altars,” “incense altars,” and “idols.” Think of the high places as shrines where idols were housed having altars for both sacrifice and for incense.

The term “high places” isn’t about altitude. It refers to any places where foreign gods were worshipped. The Hebrew word gillulim, translated “idols,” literally means “dung-gods,” or “stink-gods.”

These structures were in the land when Israel crossed the Jordan to conquer it. They were the places the pagan Gentiles worshipped. The Jews never did fully eliminate them, or when they did, as in the days of King Josiah and King Hezekiah, they were swiftly rebuilt by their successors.

Bad, bad stuff happened at these sites:

• The fertility gods & goddesses required their patrons to commit all manner of perverted sex acts.
• Molech was worshipped with human sacrifice. Substitute “infant” for human.

The Israelites worshipped God in His Temple, and they messed around on the side with the gods & goddesses of the world.

If they wouldn’t eliminate the shrines, God said He would do it. His methods were extreme. He wouldn’t simply tear down the shrines. All their dwelling places in all their cities would be torn down along with the shrines.

When God deemed it the right time, He went scorched earth.

GOOGLE “high places” and you can find hundreds of sermons about removing the high places in your life. One way is for you to make it harder to sin by quite literally removing things, or removing yourself from things. Build in safeguards so you do not find yourself at a place, or with a person, where you can sin.

The Bible then encourages you to replace anything you eliminate or are trying to eliminate with that which is good. Putting away lying, ‘LET EACH ONE OF YOU SPEAK TRUTH WITH HIS NEIGHBOR,’ for we are members of one another. ‘BE ANGRY, AND DO NOT SIN:’ do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers (Ephesians 4:25-29).

Ezk 6:4  Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

Ezk 6:5  And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars.

Ezk 6:6  In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Ezk 6:7  The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the LORD.

The nation of Israel was tasked by God to explain the righteousness of God. They miserably failed, instead becoming more like the unsaved, spiritually ignorant Gentiles.

Destroying the shrines was one thing. Laying the corpses of children before their idols… How could God do that?

First, this hadn’t yet happened. The LORD warned them it was the inevitable end of the rebel road they were choosing. When this destruction happened, it was their fault, not God’s.

Second, we think in terms of individuals whereas God was thinking nations. If you want to discipline a nation, you sometimes use another nation to overthrow it.

Third, there is something that we tend to forget. Jeremiah was prophet-ing in Jerusalem. “Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live’ ” (38:17).

Wow! They could surrender and the calamity would be lessened. God goes to incredible lengths to save.

Skip to verse eleven.

Ezk 6:11  ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Pound your fists and stamp your feet…

Ezekiel is getting the hang of physical prophecy. Pounding & stamping were symbolic of them not listening.

Ezk 6:11  … and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.

Ezk 6:12  He who is far off shall die by the pestilence, he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus will I spend My fury upon them.

Ezk 6:13  Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols.

Ezk 6:14  So I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.” ’ ” ’

The punishments listed here… They blow our minds. They are, however, better than the alternative. It is appointed unto men once to die, and afterwards comes eternity. If you die in unbelief, there can be no mercy or second chance. There is only the Lake of Fire where you will suffer eternal conscious torment.

“They shall know that I am the LORD.” This occurs four times in this short message. How would they know? They would know because of the pressure being applied.

Seeing the “slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols” is a final, radical, effort on God’s part to save them. On the surface His wrath seems cruel. It was the only means available for God to reach them before it became too late.

One of the commentators writes, “God’s chief desire is to bring people to Himself – or back to Himself. When mankind willfully refuses to turn to Him, God mercifully uses discipline and judgment to cause the people to recognize that He is the only true God, always faithful to what He has said in His word!”

If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it’s that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to eternal life.

You would likely study this passage in a Bible doctrines class. The Lord, however, isn’t explaining His impassibility.

Put yourself in Babylon, among the exiles to whom Ezekiel was addressing. You hear that God is “crushed,” “hurt,” “grieved, and “broken.” You are the one hurting Him. You are, in fact, an adulterer (and all the other things).

Ideally, you prostrate yourself before God, horrified that you have treated Him with such disdain.

#2  – God Responds To Your Faithfulness With Protection (v8-10)

Albert Barnes suggests that “sin leads to judgment, judgment to repentance, repentance to forgiveness, forgiveness to reconciliation, reconciliation to a knowledge of communion with God.”

That is always true of a small group of believing Jews throughout Israel’s history, called a “remnant.”

Ezk 6:8  “Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries.

A remnant is what is left of a community after it undergoes a catastrophe.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee commented,

Never throughout the long history of Israel did 100% of the nation worship God. Always only a remnant was faithful to Him. It was a remnant of those which came out of Egypt that entered the land. Practically the entire generation that came out of Egypt died in the wilderness. It was their children who entered the land. In Elijah’s day God had a faithful remnant. Elijah cried, “Lord, I only am left.” But God told him, “You aren’t the only one; I have seven thousand in these mountains who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” At the coming of Jesus, although the leaders of the nation rejected Him and had Him crucified, there was a remnant that received Him.

Ezk 6:9  Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulteress heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations.

The remnant are those whose own hearts are broken realizing how they’ve hurt the Lord. It is described as “loath[ing] themselves.”

Ezk 6:10  And they shall know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”

The aim of God’s judgment is described four times: “Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

John L. MacKay says remnant “is a two-sided word. In the first instance it speaks of disaster and loss ahead. But there is promise in it too. It will not be a total catastrophe, for there will be a divinely preserved remnant.”

The LORD appointed Ezekiel to share His Word with the exiles. Some heard it with spiritual ears to hear. They were suddenly gripped with the fear of the LORD, His holiness, and their own sinfulness. They believed Him and He counted it s righteousness. They were saved.

Did they go on loathing themselves? Better yet, are we supposed to loathe ourselves?

Yes & No:

⤷ Yes, I loathe what is called the flesh. “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.”^[1]

The flesh, my propensity to sin, I loathe, and I will until I receive my eternal body at the resurrection or rapture.

⤷ No, I do not loathe myself, wallowing in self-pity and false humility. I am saved, and have the permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. He enables me to obey God. I can do the things the Lord tells me to.

One commentator put it this way: “Don’t dwell on your corruption to the degree that it keeps you from joy, freedom, and love.”

Passibility is to be capable of feeling, especially suffering or to be susceptible to emotion. When theologians speak of God’s passibility versus His impassibility, they are referring to His freedom to respond emotionally versus a perceived lack of empathy for His creatures.

• The doctrine of the passibility of God does not teach that God is fickle, has mood swings, or cannot control His responses. God is never the victim of circumstance.
• The doctrine of passibility does teach that God is emotionally invested in His creation; He is involved because He cares.

Have you ever told a believer you were backslidden? Have you ever been told by a believer that you were backslidden?

How about telling or being told you were a prodigal?

As awful as those characterizations may be, they are mild when compared to being told you are an unfaithful spiritual adulterer or adulteress, a whoring harlot.

Warren Wiersbe likes to retell the story of man who came up to him after a sermon in which he had spoken about sin. He said, “Sin is different for Christians.” I said, “Yes, it is – it’s worse!”

Wiersbe was emphasizing that, for Christians who know the truth and have experienced God’s grace, sin is even more grievous because they are sinning against a greater light and understanding.

To Baldly Go Where No Prophet Has Gone Before (Ezekiel 5:1-17)

Christian Bale lost over 60 pounds for his performance in The Machinist, then bulked up by gaining 100 pounds to portray Batman.

It’s a thing in Hollywood for an actor to make drastic physical transformations. It’s nothing new. It was a thing among the Jewish exiles who lived in Babylon.

Ezekiel performed a one-man physical theater for 430 days. He took on the role of a Jewish citizen trying to survive behind the walls of the besieged city of Jerusalem. Starvation was a major theme of his performance. He daily ate a tiny ration of a kind of unhealthful bread cooked using cow dung for fire.

Is there any doubt that Ezekiel was emaciated, weak, and atrophied by the end?

The LORD likes to give us symbols and signs. Signs are never meant to to confuse, but rather to clarify. As a rule He normally explains His symbols & signs in the same chapter, or elsewhere in the Bible.

The LORD’s explanation for Ezekiel’s performance is verses five, six, and eight: “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations.”

Twice the LORD mentions that Jerusalem is in the midst of “countries all around her.” How many times does He use the word “nations?” Seven; that’s a lot.

The LORD chose Jerusalem to be the spiritual center of the Earth. Every other country should be understood as placed around her in order that they, too, might believe and be saved.

They rebelled. Instead of teaching the Gentiles about the righteousness of God, they adopted the practices of the Gentile’s ‘gods.’ The LORD said, “ ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘surely, because you have defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you;” (v11).

Ezekiel embodied, physically & spiritually, what it meant to be diminished.

Can Christians ever be described as being “diminished” by God? The church in Ephesus would answer, “Yes, a church can be diminished.” Jesus revealed to them that they had left their first love. The Lord told them He would “remove their lampstand.” Albert Barnes writes, “The meaning is, that the Church gave light in Ephesus; and that what He would do in regard to that place would be like removing a lamp, and leaving a place in darkness.”   

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 You Have Roles To Play In The Drama Of Redemption, and #2 You Have Direction To Follow In The Drama Of Redemption.

#1 – You Have Roles To Play In The Drama Of Redemption (v1-4)

This book opened on Ezekiel’s 30^th birthday. It was the day he ought to have begun a twenty-year career as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead he was one of the exiles removed from Jerusalem to Babylon in the second of three sieges. The message he received in a visit from the LORD was that the Temple, and Jerusalem, would be leveled & looted.

He is now more than a year into his new ministry as a prophetic performer. We don’t get a detailed description of his physical condition, but we don’t need one. Based on his diet & daily routine, and the fact he was portraying a people who would gradually starve to death, he was in starvation shape as he comes to his final performance in chapter five.

Can you think of a Bible character whose role did not involve suffering, sorrowing, grief, despair? I wonder in Heaven if they don’t try to one-up themselves?

Ezk 5:1 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair.

Can you even imagine what shaving your head & beard would be like using a battle sword? The swords could be up to 40” long!

Shaving-off your hair and beard was symbolic of things like sorrow and judgment. For Ezekiel, who was a priest, it was a reproach.

The day he shaved had to be the final act of the final performance. The ‘run’ of his physical theater was 430 days of lying on his sides plus one day of shaving.

Ezk 5:2  You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after them.

Ezk 5:3  You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment.

Ezk 5:4  Then take some of them again and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.

He weighed his hair into three equal piles:

1. The first pile of hair was burned in a fire.
2. The second pile was chopped at by the sword.
3. The third and final portion was tossed up into the air to be carried by the wind.

Crawling on the ground, Ezekiel recovered a few of the hairs scattered by the wind and tucked them into the folds of his garment. He took some of the  rescued hair from his garment and threw it into the fire to be burned.

Ezekiel’s hair represented what would happen to the Jerusalem Jews:

1. The portion burned in the fire represented the citizens who would die in the hardship of the siege.
2. The hair chopped by the sword represented those who would die once the gates were breached.
3. And the final portion, scattered by the wind, represented those fleeing from the city in every direction after its fall.

Some who escaped would perish. Others, a small group, would survive. God always preserves a remnant.

Graham Scroggie wrote the masterful book, The Unfolding Drama of Redemption. The liner note reads, “Get your front row seats now for the greatest drama ever – God’s plan of salvation for humanity! Organized like a dramatic play, this classic traces the theme of redemption through each book of the Bible with careful scholarship and a thorough analysis of its content and history.”

I love that, but I would ask, “Are we not the actors?”

We are on stage, not spectators. All of us take on many roles – sometimes concurrently. We read in the Bible about the roles of wives, husbands, children, masters, bond servants, pastors, teachers, evangelists, elders, deacons, missionaries.

Our dialog for each role is improvised. Whenever we speak, however, we are to speak as the oracles of God, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, using our words for building up,  letting no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouths, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace into the hearers.^[1]

In movie credits you’ll read, Personal Assistant to Christian Bale. If your life was credited like that, it would name your assistant God the Holy Spirit.

Get into your roles; On with the show, this is it.

#2 – You Have Direction To Follow In The Drama Of Redemption (v5-17)

In case you hadn’t heard, James Earl Jones died this week at the age of 93. Before he was cast as the voice of Mufasa, Sean Connery was considered.

“The name’s Mufasa; King Mufasa.”

The LORD ‘cast’ Israel in the role of revealing His righteousness to the surrounding nations. We read in Deuteronomy 7:7-8, “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

There is something called, “Replacement Theology.” It is the belief that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s plan, and that the promises made to Israel in the Bible now apply to the Church.

To which we say, “WRONG!” Israel was and is perfectly cast by the Director.

Ezk 5:5  “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her.

The model of the city being besieged; the Trager dung-cooker/smoker; a nearly starved Ezekiel – all of it was “Jerusalem.”

According to Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, “The term ‘in the midst’ in Hebrew means navel. Theologically, Jerusalem was considered by God to be the navel of the Earth. Jerusalem is the center while the other nations revolve around her. Her purpose, her calling, was to testify concerning the righteousness of God.”

Ezk 5:6  She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’

This is God saying that He held Israel to a higher standard than He did Gentiles. Makes sense; they had His Law, they knew His heart.

So also we ought to adhere to the higher standard set by our Director. “ ‘AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these’ ” (Mark 12:30-31).

Ezk 5:7  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’ –

Ezk 5:8  therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations.

It does seem, at times, that the LORD abandons Israel. The entire context of Scripture must be considered. When it is, we conclude along with the apostle Paul, “Has God cast away His people? Certainly not!… And so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:1 & 26).

Bob LaForge writes, “It stands to reason that God would abandon us because of our constant sin, but if that was a reason for Him to leave us, then there never was a reason for Him to have been drawn to us… If He was attracted to us as enemies, how could He abandon those whom He now calls His children?”

Ezk 5:9  And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations.

Ezk 5:10  Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds.

Cannibalism would ensue. When a nation rebels against God, and He gives them over to their carnal desires, does not that nation devour itself with excess?

Ezk 5:11  ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord GOD,

‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity.

Have you had the experience of visiting someone you’ve not seen in a while, who is being treated for terminal cancer? It’s hard not to be startled by their physical deterioration. They are diminished.

Ezk 5:12  One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

The commentators don’t see the End Times in these verses. Ezekiel isn’t looking that far ahead. The point here is to show what will happen to the current inhabitants of Jerusalem when it soon falls.

Ezk 5:13  ‘Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them.

Ezk 5:14  Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

Ezk 5:15  ‘So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken.

Ezk 5:16  When I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread.

Ezk 5:17  So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.’ ”

When you saw famine, pestilence, “blood” (plague), and wild beasts all at once – you could be sure it was a judgment from God.

We may not think we play a significant role. Nevertheless, your role, my role, can be equally or more difficult than that of the Bible characters. If not physically, mentally and spiritually. It’s why Hooper one-upped Quint when comparing scars. He pointed to his heart and said, “Mary Ellen Moffat. She broke my heart.”

Regardless the degree of suffering, the same Holy Spirit that entered Ezekiel resides permanently in you to come alongside and comfort you.

Let’s give an example. If you are married, you’re in the biblical roles of husband & wife. Each day God says, “Roll camera… Action.” He gives you direction in the Bible, and the enablement to follow His direction.

Is your household more Ozzie & Harriet… Or Ozzy Osbourne?

You are not looking to receive an Academy Award, or a Golden Globe, or a Peoples Choice Award.You don’t want to get a Razzi. Rewards from men & women mean nothing, and can prove to be harmful.

You will receive rewards and a Lifetime Achievement Award for your faithfulness when you appear at the Judgment Seat of Jesus after we are resurrected & raptured.

Jerry Bridges reminds us, “The promises of the Bible are nothing more than God’s covenant to be faithful to His people. It is His character that makes these promises valid.”

The Fantastic Fore-head (Ezekiel 3:1-21)

I’ve always been a skeptic when it comes to the head-butt as a fighting technique.

Seems it would hurt me as much as it would my opponent.

Turns out that’s not true – not if you perform the head-butt properly. Michael Rayburn, in a column for Police Magazine, wrote, “One only need look back at soccer’s World Cup series of 2006 and the devastating head butt delivered by French player Zinedine Zidane to Italy’s Marco Materazzi to realize how effective this tactic really is.” He head-butted him in the chest and Materazzi went down hard.^[1] He might still be down!

Don’t rock back and broadcast your head butt. Instead, compress and launch. Use the crown of your head and go for the bridge of the nose.

Hands down the best ever head-butter has got to be the prophet Ezekiel.

He was given a divine advantage. The LORD said to him, “Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead…” (3:8-9).

Ezekiel would butt heads with Israelites who were “impudent [brazen] and hard-hearted” (v7). They would “not listen to [Ezekiel], because they [would] not listen to [the LORD]” (v7).

Are the majority today listening to the Lord? They’re not listening to us, either. Brazen & hard-hearted would be an understatement.

We need to be more hard-headed…Hard-headed overcomes hard-hearted

I’ll organize my comments around two points:

#1 You Are A Hard-Headed Watchman

Who Hears & Receives God’s Word

#2 You Are A Hard-Headed Watchman

Who Hears & Repeats God’s Word

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#1 You Are A Hard-Headed Watchman

Who Hears & Receives God’s Word

(v1-15)

Before there was Logan, there was Perseus.

He was tasked with killing Medusa. One of the divine gifts he was given to kill her was an adamantine sword. It was made from a substance known as adamant. In modern comics, it’s the stuff that they added to Logan to make him Wolverine. Only they call it adamantium. I guess that makes Ezekiel the first X-Man. He was spiritually infused with adamant to perform his prophetic tasks.

Ezk 3:1  Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.”

Ezk 3:2  So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.

Ezk 3:3  And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.” So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

Three of Godʼs prophets were commanded to eat Godʼs Word – Jeremiah, John, & Ezekiel. I am definitely in the minority, but I like to think they really ate the scrolls. If that’s a little too literal, I can live with it being a metaphor for our being fortified in the inner man by God’s Word.

H.A. Ironside is a Bible commentator you want to read. He has an interesting take on this. He says the phrasing indicates that Ezekiel took in the portion but didnʼt swallow at first. Ezekiel chewed on it.

There is value in reading large portions of Scripture, and in reading through the entire Bible in a period of time. Do not neglect waiting on the Lord over a shorter passage for Him to reveal its treasures to you. Read it over & over… Pray before, during, and after… Jot down notes… Consult a Bible reference book, like a Bible dictionary, for things you need defined.  Only then reach for a commentary.^[2]

Ezk 3:4  Then He said to me: “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them.

Ezk 3:5  For you are not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, but to the house of Israel,

Ezk 3:6  not to many people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you.

Ezk 3:7  But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted.

Ezekiel is in exile, having been forcibly removed from Judah during the second siege by the invading Babylonians. The LORD has come to him in a whirlwind on His throne-chariot, borne by four mighty Cherubim. He is being ‘called’ – drafted – for his ministry among the captives.

How many times does the LORD say “the house of Israel?” Four. The title refers to the unified nation composed of the 12 tribes. After King Solomon died, the nation of Israel split in two. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel, and the Southern Kingdom was called Judah. The Northern Kingdom was conquered and its tribes dispersed about 200 years before Ezekiel prophesied to Judah.

In his conspicuous usage of “house of Israel,” Ezekiel is putting us on notice that there are no lost tribes. The LORD would regather all Jews from every tribe back home.

He did it, by the way; or at least it has begun.

Ezekiel would have a language barrier among his own people. We see this in our families & places of business. Go on a mission trip, and even with the language barrier you have greater success than you do at Thanksgiving.

Why send Ezekiel when the LORD could foresee their continued hardness? The LORD was playing the long game. Subsequent generations would see Him striving with their ancestors, out of love. His love manifests in giving us His light in order that we might receive His life.

Ezk 3:8  Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads.

Ezk 3:9  Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.”

This reads like a superhero origins story. What do we want to call him? Ironhead… Skull Crusher… Steel Brow… Head Strong?

Ezk 3:10  Moreover He said to me: “Son of man, receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears.

Ezk 3:11  And go, get to the captives, to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ whether they hear, or whether they refuse.”

It’s time we zero-in on what we mean by hardheaded. It involves hearing, receiving, and speaking.

“Hear with your ears” sounds a lot like “he who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says.”  We sometimes describe people as having an ‘ear’ for music. Having “an ear for something” suggests a heightened auditory perception or sensitivity.

There are over 120 million radio receivers in cars now. It’s a clunky illustration, but God the Holy Spirit indwelling you is a receiver for God’s Word, transmitting it to our hearts.

“Speaking” includes more than words. It is words and actions that reveal our affections and worldview.  Your worldview is the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual filter you use to experience, interpret, and respond to reality. Possessing a Biblical worldview implies that your ideas about all aspects of life and eternity derive from Scriptural principles and commands.

Hardheaded believers are tuned-in to God’s Word by the indwelling Holy Spirit. It sets the dial to a Christian worldview that doesn’t back-down from secular criticism. We have an answer for every man. We are in that way hard-heads… But tenderhearted.

Ezk 3:12  Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a great thunderous voice: “Blessed is the glory of the LORD from His place!”

Ezk 3:13  I also heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, and a great thunderous noise.

The ISV and other translations read, “Then the Spirit lifted me up and I heard a great earthquake behind me and the glory of the LORD arose from his place.” The LORD’s chariot is take-your-muffler-off loud.

Ezk 3:14  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.

Ezekiel experiences a horizontal ‘rapture’ from one place to another. This was apparently quite common in the Old Testament among prophets. There are several passages that nonchalantly mention Elijah was a frequent flyer.

In the NT, Philip baptizes the Ethiopian official, and “the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away… [and] Philip was found at Azotus” (Acts 8:39-40).

The Word of the LORD can be described as “bitter” in that it reveals many hard truths about life, death, and life after death.

John Gill commented, “In the heat of my spirit [means] ‘in the indignation of my spirit;’ his spirit was hot and angry, he was froward and unwilling to go on the errand, to prophesy sad and dismal things to his people.”

Ezk 3:15  Then I came to the captives at Tel Abib, who dwelt by the River Chebar; and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.

He wasn’t commiserating with them in their distress. “Appalled” is a better word than “astonished.” As we progress we will see the prideful, unrepentant attitude of the exiles.

I want to be described as a believer who ‘has an ear’ for God the Holy Spirit. I began in the Spirit; I want to continue with Him.

Don’t start Google-ing for “how to have an ear to hear.” You’ll discover thousands of websites & blogs, each with their own 3 or 5 or 10 steps.

We recommend immersion.

‘Immersion’ in language learning is a method where you learn a language by being surrounded by it in everyday situations, using it constantly to speak, listen, read, and write. You might move in with a family that speaks only the language you want to learn. You might even move to another country.

I don’t know what immersion in the Holy Spirit looks like for you. It will involve these four things: Prayer… Bible study… Fellowship in a local Church… Telling others about Jesus.^[3]

Immerse yourself in those things and over the course of your time on Earth, and you will develop your “ear to what the Spirit says.”

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#2 You Are A Hard-Headed Watchman

Who Hears & Repeats God’s Word

(v16-21)

Nothing mysterious about a “watchman.” He attentively looks out from his tower and sees to the safety of the people.

Ezk 3:16  Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

Ezk 3:17  “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me:

Ezekiel showed-up suddenly. He uttered not a word for a full week. It’s an appropriate prequel to his often odd ministry.

Ezk 3:18  When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.

Ezk 3:19  Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

Ezk 3:20  “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.

Ezk 3:21  Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.”

Among the exiles were wicked & righteous individuals. We would say, unbelievers & believers:

1. The unbelievers go on in their sin despite God warning them.
2. The believers are tried and proven through trials, here called “stumbling blocks,” to exhibit their love for the LORD. (Think Job).

Upon first reading, there seems to be an urgency for Ezekiel to act as their watchman.

Urgency is not one of the lessons here.

1. First, we would note that Ezekiel said absolutely nothing for seven days.
2. Second, we are going to see that for the next two years his ministry will take place at his home. He only ministers to people who come to him.

While taking nothing away from the urgency of sharing God’s Word, we don’t need to be whipped up into a frenzy by something God is not telling Ezekiel to do.

Chuck Missler’s take on this – Ezekiel needs to be faithful to his calling. If that sounds watered-down, faithfulness is much harder than you think.

We are understandably concerned about the LORD telling Ezekiel if he fails in sharing God’s Word that “his blood I will require at your hand.”

There is a legal principle here that we don’t recognize, but a Jew would.

The Law of God deals with “blood-guiltiness.”

Blood-guilt is the accountability one bears for causing the death of another person, whether directly (murder) or indirectly (manslaughter). The one who sheds blood is held responsible and is considered guilty before God and the community.

Capital punishment was required for intentional murder. Fleeing to a city of refuge offered a merciful solution for manslaughter. A trial would be held, and if the death was ruled accidental, the perpetrator was not executed, but remained in exile in a city of refuge until the current High Priest died.

Ezekiel had not begun his ministry. This is still part of his calling. The LORD, therefore, was telling Ezekiel that his ministry of sharing the Word was a matter of life & death. He would be stained with blood-guiltiness should he refuse or later reject his calling.

Remember from verse fourteen that, “his spirit was hot and angry, he was froward and unwilling to go on the errand, to prophesy sad and dismal things to his people.” The LORD wasn’t giving Ezekiel a choice to volunteer. If Ezekiel refused, he would be considered a murderer or a man-slayer.

God can bring the hammer down on His prophets when He calls upon them. Think Jonah!

Our calling & commission is the Great Commission:

“All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).

It is a serious calling. The apostle Paul remarked, “Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel! … I have been entrusted with a stewardship” (First Corinthians 9:16 & 18).

What does the Bible say is required of stewards? To be faithful. You and I are to be faithful in our own callings.

Get this through your head: Be faithful in your calling.