Prayers
Glorious Lord, You are with Your people in the place of exile and suffering. Your Word comes to us even there. You grant to us messages from Your heavenly courts to encourage us even in a land of imprisonment. Thank You for the work of Your angels, who are before Your holy presence continually. There is so much that we do not understand. We ask that You would help us to know what we should know, and to have peace regarding those things that we cannot know at present. You go where You will, O God. We are confined to a place. We face limitations. You are different. You are a fiery presence of purity. We are afraid as we hear Your Word, and are comforted by our remembrance of Your Son’s death for sinners.
Father God, You have a purpose for the Son of Man. You have sent Your own Son as a true man to Your people of the Old Covenant. When He spoke, surely the greatest prophet was among them. He faced great suffering, for they were a rebellious house. Forgive our many sins, O Lord. Your Son had no rebellion in Him. He was a faithful spokesman of Your everlasting truth; both a true Servant and Your eternal Son.
Sovereign Lord, we love Your Word. Help us to follow it. Thank You for Your prophets and apostles who have spoken this Word of truth. Thank You especially for the work of Your Holy Spirit. Without Him we would never have the will to hear and obey You. Restrain our sin, and not only our sin, but the sin of Your church throughout the world. Father, constrain Your ministers to speak Your Word in truth. They must warn Your people not to sin, or the guilt of many rebellious souls will be on the heads of Your ambassadors. They must not speak to us whatever our itching ears demand to hear. They must be true to You.
Lord God, great trouble came against Your holy city of old. This was well known to Your prophets, and they warned Your people. Yet those who were called by Your Name still would not hear Your Word. Will we be so foolish? Having the completed Word of truth in the Old and New Testaments, will we consider Your holy Scriptures as nothing? We are defiled by the filth of our wickedness. Our uncleanness is not merely outward and ceremonial. We are unclean within. Grant us ears to hear and hearts to obey by the gift of Your Spirit.
O Father, how can we dwell in Your presence? You demand righteousness, and there is much testimony that confirms that You are uncompromising concerning Your holy Law. Your people of old rejected Your statutes. They did not even act as well as the nations all around them who did not know You. The depth of the sin of Your people was obvious, and You withdrew from them. So many died. Your anger came upon them. Are we any better in Your church? Do we imagine that You now have no call to us, no claim upon our lives? Thank You for the cross and resurrection of Your Son, which is our hope. May we not forget the life we have been called to live.
Father God, You will not tolerate false worship in Your sanctuary. Your people must give up our foolish evil. Loosen the grip of our sinful minds on idolatrous thoughts and affections. Help us to feel the wretchedness of spiritual adultery. It is enough. We must repent now. We must not excuse ourselves anymore. Must more people die because we are so unwilling to devote ourselves truly to You? Our blood cannot make atonement for our own sins, or for the sins of our children. Your Son’s blood is more than sufficient for our greatest assurance of Your steadfast love.
Great King of Heaven, Your wrath against sin is justified and completely righteous. Any trouble that could ever come against us is more than deserved because of our sins. All of this righteous punishment came upon Your beloved Son on the cross. He took this great wrath and has worked out the demands of Your holy justice for Your servants. Thank You, O Lord. We will not be ungrateful for such a wonderful love. Take away from us the love of sinning, so that we will worship You from the heart. We long for our complete sanctification, not only for us, but for all Your elect. Today the church is full of bloody crimes and envious rebellion. Only You can change us, O Lord. We plead the blood of Christ. Our hope is only in You, O God.
Father God, there is much trouble and filth within Your church. Please forgive us. We have idols in our hearts and in our lives that must be destroyed and removed from Your sanctuary. You know the truth of what is in us. Though we may have a white-washed exterior, we cannot fool You. Inside there are dead men’s bones. We have even become brazen in our worship of created things. Our lives are also obvious evidence against us, for we do what is evil. Please change us and forgive us.
Lord God, the Day of Judgment will surely come. Even before that Day, we see signs of Your judgment against all that is evil. Father, we sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in Your church. We long for the purity of Your Kingdom. Yet we also have sin within us. Please pardon. The guilt of Your church is exceedingly great. We know that You have not forgotten us. You see us and You know Your children. Please have mercy on us, according to Your righteousness and grace.
Great God, please do not take Your Holy Spirit from us. Protect us from all evil. We need You. Speak to us clearly through Your servants. Grant us hope for the future because of Your great promises. At just the right time, send forth Your angels to gather Your elect from throughout the earth. Until that Day when the trumpet will sound, keep us in Your love and grace. Our brothers in places of danger cry out to You night and day. Hear and save. Send forth Your ministering angels like flames of fire. Protect us, and use us to proclaim Your glory.
Glorious Lord, You have appointed leaders among Your people, yet many do not obey You. Forgive us, O Lord. Grant to us a heavenly-mindedness that would be true to Your Word. What shall we do when those who are charged with bringing Your Word to Your people give their own message, and turn away from You? Do not make a full end of Your church. Assemble us together again as Your covenant people. Fill us with Your Spirit. We will be Your people, and You will be our God. Speak to us words of truth that we may live.
Lord God, take away our rebellion. We would claim to have ears and eyes, but we do not hear and see. You have spoken to us in ways that are unmistakably clear, yet Your people have followed their own ways. We repent, O Lord. Speak to us again through Your messengers. Do not cast us away from Your presence. Scatter the enemies who would come against Your church. Gather us together in Your presence. You are the Lord. We thank You for the union that we have with Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God. Bring to an end the preaching of false doctrines among us. Speak a true Word to us and perform it at just the right time. Glorify Your great Name.
Father, what shall become of foolish messengers who follow their own spirits? They claim to speak for You, but they do not bring forth the truth of Your Word. We thank You for the Scriptures. Help us to expound these truly. Grant that Your ministers would teach the full breadth of Your whole counsel. There is a Day of Judgment coming. We know that judgment begins with Your church. Take down the whitewashed walls that we have built, prophesying out of our own minds. Take away from us all our idolatrous and foolish magic charms that are of no use to us for any real spiritual growth. Turn us from every evil way, for You are the Lord.
Lord God, we ask that You would give elders to Your church who would truly follow Christ. What will we do if our leaders are worshipping only idols? This is not the way of Your Son. Rid our hearts of false gods. Raise up faithful men to speak the Word of truth to Your people. Be our God. We are Your people. Forgive our sins. We have wandered so far from the pathway of truth. Is there any hope for us? We ask that Your Son would plead again for us today; for us and for our sons and our daughters. Restore Your church, that we might grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
O God, will Your church be a useless vine? Are we so set on our own pride that we will not be useful for anything? Make us to be a strong tree, planted by the waterside, full of the Holy Spirit. Look upon us again, not in wrath, but in the faithfulness of Your covenant love.
Our Father in Heaven, we have sinned against You. Your people have wandered into filth and lawlessness. We have done what is both foolish and unnatural. You have spoken life into us, and yet we have been loud and filthy in our own ugly ways. You have done for us everything necessary for peace and growth, yet we have loved other gods. We have insisted on our own desires for false worship. Please help us, O Lord. Grant to us again the spiritual wisdom that we so desperately need. Have we utterly forgotten Your kindness to us? Are we beyond rescue? We confess to You that we have looked to the world for our strength. We have looked for what the world could give to us with enthusiasm, but we have had no energy for seeking You. We have taken the tithes and offerings of Your people and have spent them on the world. We have not honored You according to Your Word. Please do not discipline us forever. Grant to us a new repentance. Why are we so foolish as to follow in the ways of those who are bound for eternal judgment? Will we follow in the way of the world forever? Grant that we would resist the devil. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, that we might find again a godliness with contentment, which is great gain. We cast our cares before You. Remember Your everlasting covenant with Your children. You have surely atoned for our sin through the blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
O Lord, there is much that we do not understand. Speak to us clearly through Your Word, and fill us with a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Your Son. You have blessed us with so many wonderful gifts. Cause Your church to be a fruitful plant with deep roots. You know the secrets of our hearts. You know of the foolish schemes of wicked leaders among Your church. Thank You for the perfection of our One Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He surely is a new tree of righteousness for Your people. We find protection under His branches. In Him, You have fully accomplished our rescue from sin and death.
Father God, we have such foolish sayings that pass among us as if they were from Your Word. Please forgive us for our lack of careful attention to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. You demand righteousness from Your people. The righteous man will truly be righteous and will live righteously. Such a man will live. Father, what will become of us, for we have sinned against You? Where is our perfect righteousness? We have heard of the good news that Your Son lived and died for us. Our Savior has suffered for our iniquity. Since we have received so great a salvation, will we now be fools and commit horrible sin? Will we tempt You in this? Take away the foolishness of Your children. The injustice that we do, will it now lead to death? The right course for us is very clear. We will confess our sins to You. We will repent and turn from all of our transgressions. Do not let our iniquity destroy us. Grant to Your people a new heart for You, that we might attend to Your good Word.
Lord God, we cry for the leaders of Your church. They should be under-shepherds for the Lord Jesus Christ. Will they devour men and seize their widows? Is this the way of love? Is this the pathway for a people who know the salvation of the cross? Draw us back again to Yourself in love. Please grant to us faithful shepherds who will love You and will feed Your flock according to the directives of that one great Shepherd of the sheep.
Sovereign Lord, Your Word is true and good. We want to hear the truth. What is wrong with our hearts that we would ever resist You? You have given us so many good things, and have warned us concerning the detestable nature of idolatry. Nonetheless we have been attracted to what is wrong and foolish. Lord, we would rest in Your Son, for He is our great Sabbath. He has accomplished our redemption through His death. We are the ones who have violated Your commandments, but He has paid the great debt that we incurred. He never rebelled against You, but we have profaned Your Name and Your Law throughout all the nations where we live. You are the Lord. Speak to us now in great power and love. Draw us near again by Your Spirit. We hate all our false worship, and we turn away from all this defiling spiritual adultery. We repent. We hate our sin. We hate our desire to be imitators of the world, rather than imitators of Your Son. If You enter into judgment with us face to face we will never stand. You have seen Your beloved Son face to face in judgment for our sake. We were scattered, but now we have been gathered. We were rejected, but now in Him we have been accepted forever. You have not dealt with us according to our evil hearts and our arrogant ways. You have granted us mercy, according to the righteousness of Your Son, our atoning sacrifice.
Merciful Lord, we cannot face Your sword of judgment. Will all Your people be destroyed? We groan because of Your wrath and because of the sin of Your church. The nations are full of iniquity. This we could stand. But how can it be that Your people are so full of sin? They will not respond to discipline. Trouble is coming against us. Pagan armies do what they think to be the directives of their gods. Yet You work out every detail of Your will. There is a deep weariness among Your people. How can we continue, O Lord? We need Your Son. He is in us, and His love is in us. Surely You will help us. We are weak, and we need You even now.
Lord God, how are
we to judge? There are abominations all around us, and trouble is very near.
You must cast out the filth that is in us, so that we can speak for you with
boldness. Surely we will always need the mercy that you have shown us. We have
pursued all kinds of uncleanness. We are at the forefront of a great company of
sinners. If we have any strength left, it must be from You. You are the Lord.
Purify us, O God. Your Son went through the furnace of Your judgment for us.
Teach us to love Your true Word, and to stop our ears against false prophets.
Is extortion and robbery acceptable within Your covenant community? We are in
danger because of our evil ways.
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O God, we have heard the Word that You have spoken. For generations Your people have ignored the true call to holiness. We lust after the world, and display no spiritual sense. We have touched things that should be far from us, and have followed enticing adulteries. What possible reason could we rightly have for our defiling ways? Do we really love the gods of the Assyrians and Babylonians? Will we only do as Israel and Judah did of old? We are so impressed with the ways of the world. We want what they seem to offer, and we have no sense of the way of the cross. Do we love soldiers and chariots more than the Savior who speaks to us in word and sacrament? There is only one way for us. Your Son will surely lead us out of our current disgrace. The power of the cross is everything to us. We turn away from the worldliness that is attacking Your church. Your temple is holy, and we are that temple. We will not waste our hearts on false spiritual ways. Move us in the way of Christ. Help us to eagerly embrace the way of the cross by Your grace. The judgment against us would come speedily were it not for Your steadfast love and Your Son’s amazing grace.
Almighty God, You are the Lord of the church and the Lord of our lives. Your Word has come to us. Each day has a special purpose according to Your eternal plan. Nothing is without some good cause, and some holy intention. You will purify Your church. This is what we seek, but who can bear the trials that are so near to us? You will cleanse us from our uncleanness. You are utterly committed to what is right. O Lord, thank You for the delight of our eyes. You have given us wives and husbands, You have blessed Your church with children. Will these be taken away in a moment? Even so, You are the everlasting God. Father, there must be a better day coming. This grief cannot be the final story of our lives. The news for us must somehow again be good. We cling to Your promises, though we do mourn in the depths of our hearts. There is surely a better day coming.
Lord of the nations, even our enemies can have no other God but You. Though the world rails against You and brings much trouble upon Your church, is there any other hope but You? There is no other god. If they worship demons, can fallen angels save them? Would a demon have love for men? Is there any good that comes from hateful spirits? Surely even our enemies should turn to You now! Why should anyone be satisfied with idols that are not gods? Why should Your enemies add to the weight of sin? It is already an overwhelming burden, but there is a way out of the weight of Your judgment in the wonder of Your love.
Father God, help us to have mercy for those who suffer affliction, while continuing in Your Word. We cannot pretend that falsehood is truth. We cannot forget Your standards of righteousness. That would not be kindness. We know that we need to mourn over the bad condition of Your church and still do for others as we would desire them to do for us. Thank You for the love of the cross. Grant us wisdom to know how to love others with whom we disagree, to know that vengeance is Yours, and to wait for the day of Your deliverance.
O Lord, teach us to raise a lamentation when even our foes suffer. The day will come when we will rejoice in Your perfect justice and will judge even angels. Today we do not know how to do this without hypocrisy and sin. The world has been engaged in all kinds of dedication to money that is the root of much evil. Surely we cannot pretend that greed and covetousness are just another lifestyle choice? There is a dangerous love for wealth that leads so many astray. We cannot go this way and still pretend that You are Lord. We cannot serve both You and unrighteous gain. We are happy to see prosperity around us, but not the love of riches. Teach us how to relate to the world with kindness, and to proclaim Your truth with integrity.
Lord God, keep us from self-destructive pride. We have wealth and intelligence. You have given us many other good gifts. Yet are we so foolish as to think that we are superior gods? Our lives are in Your hands. We were created by You. You have cared for us throughout our lives. You brought us to faith in Your Son. You have rescued us out of many dangers. You have watched over us and helped us in every trouble. You have even selected trials for our good. Will we then act as if we are somehow above You? Do we really want to contend with You? Surely Your church must not be full of pride like some rich nation. Though Your Son was equal with You in essence, He willingly humbled Himself before You. Is it too much for us to be lowly? Please restore us again to the sweetness of fellowship with You. Forgive our sins, and grant to us a more righteous frame of mind.
Great God of Heaven and Earth, there is much trouble all around us. Proud enemies have confidence in their strength. They are frightening in their power and hate. How will we survive? Surely we will be rescued by You. If You were not watching over us even now, we would not last for a moment. Our enemies come against us, but You can stop them as they seek to do us harm. We marvel at the extent of Your great decrees. You know where nations come from and where they are going. At just the right time, You sent Your Son to be an atoning sacrifice for Your people. If You gave Your Son for us, will You not freely give us all things? Will You not protect us from every danger? We trust You.
O Lord God Almighty, when will the Day of the Lord come? We know that we are to consider it near. We have been told that we shall not know the day or the hour. Help us to be ready for that Day. Our only hope is in Your Son. When anguish comes upon all the people of the earth, we shall rejoice in Jesus Christ forever. Desolation is coming against the earth, but we will be rescued. What will it be like when there is no more sin in us or among us? What will it feel like when we are with You and with each other in resurrection life forever? You will put every foe far away from us. No longer will we be harassed by an unseen enemy bringing turmoil upon our souls. On that great Day, we will surely know that You are the Lord.
Our Father, there is an adversary who is spiritual and powerful. As we consider the great kings of evil empires from days gone by, we know that the most powerful man returns to dust. Like a great tree of the field, though he seems to rule forever, the day of his death will come. More frightening still is the angelic foe. Yet we are told that if we resist Him, He will flee. How could we have that kind of power except by Your decree? One day the worst of our foes will be cast into a place of punishment forever. We flee to You again for safety. We remember Your Son, His cross, and His resurrection.
Great King of the Nations, You do not fear the powers of the great men. Though they rail against You and persecute Your children, You can capture them and destroy them in a moment. You have a plan for every nation, and You have a great blessing for Your church. We do not need to search for a King for Your people, for the Lord Jesus Christ is the King and Head of Your church, and He is alive forever. When everything seems to be lost, when we do not know the way out, You are still God, and You will certainly accomplish all of Your holy will. What will it be like when the Day of Judgment comes? What will happen to those who have spread their terror everywhere? Father, we pray for the salvation of people from every nation. We pray for abundant mercy for all kinds of people. Bring the message of hope to the remotest ends of the earth. The trouble ahead for those who will go down to the pit will be beyond anything that we can imagine. Grant many people ears to hear the truth of Christ.
Our Father, we know that we have a special responsibility to those all around us. Particularly our ministers of the Word have an important job as watchmen. They have heard the Word from Your mouth. They must warn the wicked to turn from their evil ways. You have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. There is hope for any man today in Christ. We do not trust in our righteousness. Day by day we turn away from the path of sin and flee to Your Son again for life. You are just in Your punishment of the wicked. You have also satisfied the demands of Your justice even in Your mercy for Your people. Was there anything lacking in the cross of Christ? Have not the demands of Your justice for us been fully satisfied in His atoning death? There is evil all around us. There is yet evil in us and among us. Grant to us a Word from heaven through Your servants. Teach us to hear You and to live.
Lord of the Harvest, You sent Jesus Christ to be both Son of Man and Son of God. He is the Good Shepherd of the sheep. False teachers and greedy men have scattered Your sheep. They are imposters. They have fed themselves and not the sheep. Your Son has come as the Shepherd of Your flock. He is gathering many through His Word. His sheep hear His voice and they know Him and they follow Him. He is the One who seeks the lost. He brings back the wandering ones. Those who came before did not really care for the sheep. They have created many troubles for Your people. Send Your servant, the Son of David, to be our Prince forever. Send down showers of blessing upon us, and provide everything that we need that we may live, Take away the reproach of Your people, and keep us as Your sheep forever.
Our Father, Your love for Your people is a special love. You make a distinction between Jacob and Esau. You will defend Your people. If Esau rejoices over the trials of Your beloved Jacob, it will not go well for Esau. There can be no peace for those who determine to persecute Your church. You will come in power at just the right time. Even when we feel desolate and abandoned, You will rescue us forever. Teach us Your Way. Show us how to trust in You every day.
Glorious Lord, Your Word is perfect. As we wait for the great blessings you have promised, we should hear Your voice with reverence and joy. Grant especially that all of Your ministers would not only hear Your Word, but also that they would rightly preach it and obey it. Grant that Your church will be doers of the Word rather than imitators of the world. Help us to follow in Your ways, and bless Your church in the days to come. We have defiled Your church with our disobedience, and You have disciplined us in love. Will we ever change? In Your concern for Your holy Name, fill us with Your Spirit so that we will turn away from sin. Cause us to believe in Your power and Your love. Grant to us a new heart and a new Spirit. Why should we not do the things that Christ has commanded? We will follow You by the strength of Your Spirit. Bring us growth in holiness and every good and appropriate prosperity by Your grace.
Great Lord and King, You have displayed to us the reality of the resurrection to come in the vision of prophets, in the words of the Scriptures, and especially in the firstfruits of that resurrection in Jesus Christ our Lord. Only You could create the world. Only You could bring spiritual life to souls that were dead in sin. Only You can bring physical resurrection to bodies that have been resting in the graves for centuries. Only You can bring immortal souls together again with resurrection bodies. This You have promised to do, and this You will do. In that day there will be one people of God. This community of redemption will be gathered together in Jesus Christ. We shall rejoice in Him in the new Jerusalem. We thank You for this best of all promises. Your Son will be King over us. We will be imitators of You in that place. We will be participants in an everlasting covenant of peace. You sanctify Your people. Your sanctuary will be in our midst forevermore.
O God of Glory, what will become of this present world in the Day of Your Son’s return? There is no hope in the strength of men. When You go out against those who have persecuted Your people, they will not be able to stand. All the evil schemes of powerful people will come to nothing. We will be so perfectly secure in Your Son in that Day! No one will be able to answer You when You bring Your just judgments upon the world. You will vindicate Your holiness before the eyes of all men. Though many presume that Your Son will never come in judgment, You have promised His return, and have spoken clearly about the sword that is coming against the world. In His first coming, Your Son did not come to judge the world, but to save it. One day He will return again to judge both the living and the dead.
Lord of Hosts, what will the strong nations of the world do when You come against them with Your almighty power? No assault against Your holy mountain will ever be successful. Your Name will be exalted there forever. We long for that place and that time when it will be so clear that You are our All in all. The coming judgment of the earth will be a frightening and devastating thing. Who can understand it? Who can really feel it and know it? We are thankful that we know only small tastes of this coming horror. We are grateful that we will never really experience that eternal curse. Though we have dealt treacherously with You and Your people to our shame, Your Son has taken the full weight of Your wrath against us for our sin. You will vindicate Your holiness in bringing great blessing upon us, for on the cross Your Son has already faced the judgment that was against us.
O Lord God, bring us to Your resurrection temple. Grant that we will be able to walk all around its courts. Bring us into the company of angels and holy men. What a great blessing to be in Your house! Let us see the gates of Your wonderful land. Cause us to walk through all the great rooms, and to see the wonder of everything in Your holy place. What must it be like to be in a place of such wonder, that the finest joys of earth would seem like nothing compared to the glory of even the pavement for the feet of men and angels? We long to walk on the steps in that place. We want to see it from every direction, and to explore it all from every vantage point. How we praise You, O Lord! What a joy it will be to be in the place won for us through the blood and righteousness of Christ. We think of the pain of Your Son as He longed to return to such a great place of glory. He faced the faithlessness of men here below everywhere He went. Everything here had the imprint of sin and misery on it. Yet He came and gave His life as the perfect whole burnt offering. There was nothing missing in the fullness of His life. He obeyed You perfectly with such an unusual combination of holiness and modesty. In His death He became the perfect sin offering for us. He is our great High Priest forever. Now He lives forever in the holy place above. We are overcome by the glory of this thought: We will be with Him one day, and we will see Him as He is!
Father God, we want to worship You forever and ever. How can we dwell with You? We will have to be changed in our deepest nature. All sin will be utterly removed from us. We will be in the Holy Place in Your great habitation. Yes, we will be even in the Most Holy Place. We will see the wonderful dimensions of it. All the sins of our old hearts that distract us now in public worship and private devotion will be completely removed from us. All the clamor of human weakness and sin will be far from that place of glory. Let us walk around Your temple above, like Your prophet of old. He had such an experience, walking through the most excellent creation with an angelic guide. There we would see things that we have never seen before. How would we ever describe it? Yet, we want something even more than the prophet experienced during His visit. We want to be there with all the inhabitants of Your temple forever. We want to experience that glory without any concern that our joy will ever be taken away. Grant this, together with the forgiveness of our sins.
O God in Heaven, when we are brought to Your temple above, where will we will live, and how will we serve You there? We know that we will be as priests forever. Even now we are among the priesthood of all who believe. What will it be like for us to be in the secure company of holy men and angels forever? In Your house above there are many mansions. Each chamber in Your temple must be like a mansion in its holiness and glory. We look forward to the provision of holy garments for our life above. Even now we have been clothed with the garments of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. How could there be any better clothing for us? Yet our perfect garments above will be visible. What a glorious thought!
Glorious God, fill Your church with Your glory. Here below we have a taste of Your greatness. We are hungry for more of Your glory. We long to be in that place where You will dwell with Your people forever. No longer will our defiling sin give us trouble. All of our evil will be utterly put away. This is what we long for. We are ashamed of our horrible iniquities. Even before the return of Your Son, when our bodies rest in the grave, even then our sin will be utterly removed from our eternal souls. Grant that our perfected spirits will one day be brought to dwell in our resurrected bodies forever. May we enjoy Your temple forever in that day with purified spirits in resurrection splendor. May we walk all around it, and contemplate the glory of it in all of its greatness. Thank You for the blood of Your Son, by which we have been granted such a glorious expectation. Surely our sin has been atoned for. Send Your Son to us. Fill the temple of Your living church even now, as we wait for the fulfillment of Your most excellent promises. We are acceptable in the Beloved. What a wonderful hope we have!
Great Lord, You are the God of Heaven and Earth. Your Son has entered into the heavenly sanctuary. He has made an entrance into Your temple for us in Him. We repent of all known sin. We want to be numbered among the Israel that is above. We receive You with joy today, and turn away from every foolish desire, thought, saying, action, and inclination. We draw near to You now through Jesus Christ. We want to minister to You one day in Your holy sanctuary. Father, we understand that You are preparing us for that day even now. How are You using the troubles of Your church to prepare us for the life to come? We are assured that our labor in Your Son is not in vain. What glory is coming for Your martyrs, and for those who have given up everything in order to serve You here below? Forgive us when we have made foolish choice after foolish choice. We have missed the opportunity to suffer for You and to serve You. Don’t we understand anything about the glory of the life to come? How else could we make such worldly decisions day by day, as if the current age were everything and the life to come was nothing? But with You there is abundant forgiveness.
Lord God, we long for Immanuel’s land. You have a place for us there. Your Son went ahead to prepare that place for us. How extensive is Your great land! There is a room there for Your beloved children. The priesthood of all believers is laboring here below by Your grace. Today we face oppression, even from those who should be godly leaders in our midst. Here people lie to us and cheat us. Here we worry about the danger that our money will run out. We spend our resources in foolish ways, with little sense of our purpose in life. We long for Your courts above. We will thank You forever for our perfect atonement in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There we will not be plagued by evil people around us or from the remaining sin within and among us. We wait, O Lord, and we love You and one another in the strength of our eternal hope.
God of Grace, we long for the fullness of Sabbath rest that has been won for us through the work of Jesus Christ. His offering of Himself for us will be a testimony in Your Kingdom forever. We thank You for this great Prince, the Captain of our salvation. Will we actually be able to see Him in the temple above? We know that we will, for You have assured us that we will see Him as He is. We will fall before Him with the great joy of heavenly worship. O Father, we do not understand the things of heaven as we ought to. We do know that we are the property of Your Son. We are a part of Your glorious inheritance in the saints. We strain to understand the pictures of heaven presented to us in Your Scriptures. We so easily misinterpret Your Word. We humbly beseech You, take us, one day, to be with You, so that we can see You.
Our God, we want to see the water coming forth from Your heavenly temple. We want to put our hands in it, walk in it, and swim in it. We need the life from this river even now. That water brings fresh new life everywhere it goes. Bring the Word of life everywhere, so that the dead may be brought to life again in Your Son. Lord show us the way of the greatest spiritual health even now, that we may walk in it. Where is our place in Your great land? Surely there is a place for all those who rest in Your Son. Will we want to explore the whole length and breadth of Your land for all eternity, or will we stay as near to You as we can be? We were foreigners to the covenant of grace, but now we have been brought near to You through the blood of the Lamb. Where will we live in glory? We know we will be in Christ, and that our joy will be full.
Father, we are coming to You in just a little while. We are not coming to visit, but to stay. One day Your Son will take us with Him again as He comes back to usher in the new age to come in all of its fullness. Then all those who are His in this world that is fading away will be changed and we will be together with Your Son forever. Teach us to be faithful to You even now. It is appointed for us to live once, and then to face judgment. You will carry us safely through that coming judgment. Christ has died for our sins. We long for the new holy work that You have prepared for us. There will be no evil in that work, but much holy joy. Here we feel so out of place. We are not at home. We long for the revelation of this new land. It is our inheritance. We have a portion in it. O grant that we would enter that city through the gate appointed for us at just the right time. We want to live in the city with that glorious name. The name of that city is “The Lord is there.”
Devotionals
The exile of Judah to Babylon did not take place all at once. Ezekiel, who was apparently a priest as well as a prophet, was in an early group of exiles. As someone who was very concerned about the temple, it is possible that he was only able to write about it from a distance. This had to be part of the trial that he faced as a man of God; that his heart longed for the courts of the Lord, but he had to live out so many of his days as a captive in a foreign land.
Though Ezekiel was far from Jerusalem, the God of Israel was not far from Ezekiel. He said in the opening verses of this book that “the hand of the Lord” was upon him there. What he saw in a vision on that occasion was beyond the normal experience of men. It was the glory cloud of God’s presence, which would have been very frightening to behold, with stormy wind and a flashing fire coming forth continually.
From out of that cloud Ezekiel saw four mysterious angelic creatures. They seemed metallic and yet with the appearance of animal features, and very much alive and on the move. They had multiple wings, and these were perfectly coordinated with each other. These creatures were moving in accord with the Spirit in a way that is hard to imagine. The image of lightening is used to describe this motion. They appeared to be like red-hot coals, and yet they were not being consumed.
The other thing that was so striking about these creatures was their mechanism for motion. They seemed to have some ball-bearing-like structure that could move them in any direction. These transporting mechanisms were full of eyes, all completely submissive to the will of the Spirit. These creatures were clearly powerful and frightening to behold, not only because of their unusual appearance and their motion, but also as a result of their sound. It was a sound of a great tumult like an army.
A voice above the heads of these creatures was also mentioned. The voice did not come from the creatures, but from the expanse in the skies above them. There above was a sapphire-like throne, and above this was some being with a human appearance, also with some metallic-like features and fire. There was a shining brightness all around Him. Can there be any doubt that Ezekiel had been brought into the throne room of the Lord Almighty, and yet the one above the throne was a glorified Son of Man.
In the skies above Him was a great bow in the clouds, reminding us of the covenant that God had given that communicated peace to humanity in the days of Noah. What Ezekiel saw does not appear to be earth. Noah’s covenant was for the earth during the period after the flood and continuing forward as long as this age of sin should last. In that covenant sign of the rainbow in the heavens God’s attribute of judicial restraint shined forth. The world deserved the continual wrath of God as was once expressed in the flood, but the Lord had determined to show His restraint so that His plans for humanity might move forward, despite the continual offence of our sin.
While visions of the heavenly sanctuary and representations of the glory of the Lord were unusual, when they did happen, it was very normal for the man who saw them to be overwhelmed, and to fall on his face. This was what Ezekiel did. God was ready to call His prophet. He had suddenly brought this exiled priest to a better temple than the one in Jerusalem. He was brought to the glory cloud of God, because the Lord had something to say to Him. God had a plan for Him, as He always had plans for all of His prophets. The time had come now for Ezekiel. Though He was far from Jerusalem, the Lord was not going to be far from Him.
Some years later, God sent His Son to His people Israel. He was the greatest prophetic Word ever known. He was set apart by the Father for His mission. Israel was no longer in exile, but the Jews were living under foreign domination. God sent Jesus out of the glory cloud. The second person of the Godhead, the visible man on the throne, now actually became the Son of Man.
He came from heaven, amidst the glorious presence of angels that filled that place, but this baby was not born in a palace. He was born a manger, for it was His destiny to live in a low condition. He would return to the glory cloud one day, but the way to that day would cross through even greater troubles. As the prophets of the Old Testament had suffered at the hands of men, God’s Incarnate Word would be rejected by many. He would speak the truth perfectly, and live out the wonder of God’s salvation through amazing miraculous signs. He would teach people concerning the fulfillment of the long-expected Messianic Kingdom of God. Very few would seem to have ears to hear His message, and many who made a start in following Him would eventually fall away.
This great Lord would die for us, and then rise again. Though He had been brought so very low, suffering as a sin offering to purify the heavenly sanctuary for the presence of redeemed sinners, He would give a great high priestly blessing upon His disciples as He returned home. We look to Him now, who has once again ascended into the glory cloud. We do not see His face, but we hear His Word and are filled with His Spirit. We shall soon be home with Him, for we will be in His glorious presence forever.
Isaiah and Jeremiah were warned, when they were called by God, that the ministry that He had ordained for each of them would involve much suffering. In both cases, one of the most challenging facts they had to deal with was the hard-heartedness of those to whom they were sent. As we read of the words that Ezekiel heard when He was brought up into the heavenly glory cloud, we find that he also is given a frank warning concerning the rebelliousness of the Lord’s covenant people.
Many years later, this was also a feature of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Even though He received the approval of great crowds because of His miracles, and even though many people marveled at the way that He taught with authority, it was still a fact that as time went on there were many who fell away among those who first considered following Him. The reason for that seems to be that His words were too hard for them. They did not have an ear for God’s Word.
Ezekiel is called by the title “son of man” just as Jesus was so many years later. At the beginning of this chapter, the prophet has to be told to stand up. More than that, the Spirit enters him and stands him on his feet. The reason for this is that Ezekiel had fallen on his face in the wonder of fear after he was brought up into the heavenly glory cloud of God. He was overwhelmed. God had something to say to Him, and Ezekiel heard the message from heaven itself.
God was sending Ezekiel to a nation of rebels. Was he going to the Edomites, the Moabites, or the Babylonians? Not exactly. The Lord was sending Him to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The people of Israel were set aside by God as a special people. He gave them laws that made them different from every other people. They had a special calendar related to God’s work of redemption in their lives. They had many natural and spiritual advantages, but they had rebelled against God. Even though they had already experienced the beginnings of discipline through the start of a national exile, they were still called “rebels” by God.
This rebellion was nothing new. It did not simply spring up in one generation. The Lord had been patient with them for centuries. They had sinned, and their forefathers had sinned. This was quite evident from the history of their life in the wilderness. Though they were repeatedly and vigorously warned by the prophets that the Lord sent, they ignored these messengers. Whether it was during the days of the judges, or throughout the history of so many wicked kings of Israel and Judah, there was ample evidence that God’s special people had thrown off the yoke of his law as a most unwelcome burden. What was amazing was that God indicated that they had not yet changed on this point, despite the challenges they had faced. Even up to the very day of Ezekiel’s call, they were transgressors. If they would not respond to the beginnings of exile, how would they ever be changed at all? The people of God needed a new spirit, so that they would desire what was good, and not recoil from righteousness.
While a prophet wants to be heard, and sincerely desires to see God’s people repent and follow the Lord, there will be many who simply refuse to hear. Even in that case, a rejected ministry of the Word is still a testimony to the God who sends forth the messenger. The people, though they may rebel against God, still know that the one who says, “Thus says the Lord,” has truly spoken for the Lord Almighty.
God called Ezekiel to a life of courageous service. He could not be afraid of the threats of men. He could not be overly affected by their looks of displeasure, and their words of criticism. This was the reason for this warning from the Lord at the very time of His calling. Above all, He could not stop speaking, and he could never change the message. He also could not join in their rebelliousness. He was God’s man, and needed to be faithful to His mission in a very difficult day. His faithfulness was expressed first in taking in the Lord’s message of lamentation, mourning, and woe, and then in faithfully and forcefully communicating that message.
We have a faithful messenger in God’s house in the Lord Jesus Christ. He also came to a wicked and adulterous generation. They wanted Him for His miracles, but ultimately rejected His Word. He was bold in His prophetic utterance, and courageous in His atoning death. This is the test of the prophet. Does He believe the Word that He preaches? Will He gives His life for the message? In the case of Christ, His death was more than this. He not only proved His own sincerity through His death. He also gave Himself as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of God’s people. This was more than Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel could ever do.
There are at least two things necessary in the prophetic process of revealing the will of God. First, the prophet must hear the Word of God. From the standpoint of the hearer, this is not primarily an exercise of the ear, but an action of the heart, mind, and will. The prophet must have a readiness to believe and obey. This requires a work of God. The second is no less amazing. The prophet must speak the Word of God forthrightly with true love for God and love for His people.
The two actions are connected. Ezekiel symbolically eats the scroll of God’s Word as a sign of taking it in. Though it may be sweet in his mouth, it will not be sweet to everyone. He must speak this Word to the house of Israel. The prophet must die to himself in order to speak the truth in love. Only God can bring about such a death, and where the prophet dies in this spiritual sense, God is pleased to grant a resurrection. As the prophet ministers in the power of a new life, it should be clear that God is the one who speaks through such a messenger.
God sent Ezekiel to the house of Israel, a house that should have been humble at this moment in their history. They were not. Some day in the distant future, the Lord would send forth His apostles into foreign lands. They would go to men with strange customs and unknown languages. Amazingly, those people would hear the message of a Jewish Messiah God and would believe. They would count the scroll as sweet. The house of Israel, on the other hand, would reject the message of God. They had become stubborn in their rebellion. This rebellion was not an intellectual problem or a philosophical problem, as if the descendants of Jacob just could not accept the theology of their God, though they loved God Himself. The problem was presented in personal terms. God said to Ezekiel that the house of Israel had rejected God personally. They would be most stubborn, but in God’s raising up of His prophet the Lord made Ezekiel just as stubborn for the truth as they were stubborn for the way of rebellion.
The specific sons of Jacob that were to hear these words of the prophet would be those who were already in exile before the day of the destruction of Jerusalem. Ezekiel seemed to be transported from the glory cloud where He received this divine call to a particular location in a foreign land. This was an overwhelming experience of great bitterness, and the prophet sat there among them for seven days.
As a true prophet of the Lord, Ezekiel had to fulfill the role of a watchman for a city. The watchman was to keep an eye out for approaching danger. When he saw trouble, he would waste no time in issuing a warning to the city. If he did not issue a warning, he was guilty for abandoning his post. Ezekiel was a watchmen for the house of Israel in exile. He did not necessarily see trouble with his eyes, but he heard it with his ears, for God gave him the message that needed to be spoken before the people. If Ezekiel spoke this message truly, then he had discharged his responsibility. This is why, in the New Testament, Paul says to the Ephesian elders, “I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” If Ezekiel would not speak the truth plainly, then he would be guilty, but if he did his part, and the people refused to listen, the blood was on their own heads.
With that clear warning, we would have expected Ezekiel to be earnestly speaking immediately, but instead the Lord surprisingly put him in a situation of speechlessness. Ezekiel would be mute, not because of the fear of man, or because of his own rebellion, but because of the will of God. The glory of God appeared to him, and He fell on His face as He had before. Once again, the Lord seemed to pick him up, and instruct him. Ezekiel would shut himself within his house as one who had been bound to this solitary life. His tongue would not work. He would be mute – physically unable to correct anyone. This, God said, was a judgment upon the house of Israel, because of their rebelliousness.
This period would come to an end as the Lord would speak to the prophet as the voice of the Lord Himself. The true prophet does not speak on his own. There were many false prophets throughout the history of God’s people. Many denied that there would be an exile to Babylon. Others claimed that those who were part of the early exile would soon be back in the land. These prophets spoke presumptuously. They had not heard from the Lord. They could not speak for the Lord. It would have been far better for them to have said nothing at all.
When Christ came as our good shepherd, He received the call directly from His Father. He had the instruction to lay down His life, that He might take it up again. He said, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” There were occasions when He said nothing. This also was in accord with His Father’s will. Concerning His disciples, He said this: “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” He is the perfect watchman over the church. He has faithfully discharged His duties, and has given us the Word of life. He surely died to self in all that He said and did. Yet He did far more than the most faithful prophet, for He died in our place. He laid down His life, and took it up again. As those who have died to self and sin, let us walk now in resurrection life. Let us turn away from sin, and do everything that Christ has commanded.
Ezekiel may not have been able to speak at this moment in his ministry, but God did enable him to communicate a powerful message through his instruction to act out various truths with symbolic presentations. The first of these had to do with the siege against the city of Jerusalem. The exiles in Babylon may have heard encouraging words from false prophets claiming that they would soon be back in the land. In a way they would be back soon, but not as men mark time over the course of their lives. Forty years of remaining exile was still a long time.
God had Ezekiel take a large slab of brick. The prophet engraved some representation of the longed-for city of Jerusalem. Then, as if in a child’s game, there was a siege wall built up next to the brick, and a mound of earth against this little Jerusalem. Then the prophet looked at the brick, but there was an iron wall between the prophet and the brick. The prophet was the representative of God, and there was a barrier between the city and God. He would not hear their pleas. The siege against Jerusalem would eventually be successful, and this was part of the plan of their Almighty God.
During the reign of Hezekiah in the south, the northern kingdom of Israel was overtaken by Assyria. The Assyrians were eventually replaced by the Babylonians, and then the Babylonians by the Medes and the Persians. Since a variety of starting and ending points for this display can be suggested, it is hard to know precisely which of these is being referred to here. It is clear that the trouble for the northern kingdom was not brief. In the days of Cyrus, there would be a significant return of the people to the south. During this return, some who came back would have been from the northern tribes. Ezekiel modeled these hundreds of years of discipline by lying on his left side for 390 days, more than one year in total. As a personified house of Israel, he bears the punishment of the northern tribes, one day for each year.
Once that was over, it was time to model the years of trouble remaining for Judah, the southern kingdom. Harassed during the reign of the sons and grandson of Josiah, finally in the days of Zedekiah Jerusalem would be destroyed. Her walls would be broken, and her temple burned along with many houses, and more of her sons and daughter would be carried off to Babylon. Eventually by permission of Cyrus and under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah they would be led back into the land. The time remaining according to Ezekiel is 40 years, and this is symbolized with a forced posture, lying on his right side, the prophet would give his silent prophesy against the city of Jerusalem.
There is more to communicate in this lived-out parable. During these years the people of Jacob will suffer. There will be trouble with food and water. Ezekiel will eat his rationed portions willingly, but God’s special nation will face their trials unwillingly. They will be forced to bake their bread using human dung as fuel for the fire.
Ezekiel did not complain about any of this until he heard that he was being asked to do something that would make him ceremonially unclean. Though far away from the temple life, this priest still had a tender conscience regarding laws of clean and unclean. He made his plea before God, and the Lord permitted him to use cow dung rather than human dung. Aside from this one adjustment, there was apparently a complete yielding to the will of God for this unusual project.
God spoke to Ezekiel further about the trouble that Jerusalem will face. It will be worse than Ezekiel’s actions in the acted prophecy. God would break the supply of bread in Jerusalem. Ezekiel had his portion, but Jerusalem would not. There was another addition to the message. There would not only be scarcity. There would also be great anxiety and dismay. The Lord’s Word included a horrifying prediction of death in the city. Many people would rot away because of their punishment.
What happened to Jerusalem was not an accident. It was part of a larger picture of the Lord’s plans against his rebellious Old Testament people. That plan had been announced through Moses centuries before, yet it was known by God from before the creation of the world. In fact, even His actions for and against Israel were only a small part of a larger plan. The key moment in that larger plan involved a suffering far more than what Ezekiel faced in living out the judgment plays of Ezekiel 4. It was even far more than all the suffering of Israel and Judah in their troubles with Assyria and Babylon. At the center of all God’s plans was His determination to face the wrath that was due to all His elect children for their sin.
This is why Jesus Christ came as the Son of Man. He did not merely act out a play on the cross. He actually atoned for our sins. Because His death was more than a drama, it has a power that has changed the world forever. A passion play might have been interesting to watch, and it could have communicated a message, but the real death of Christ as our atoning sacrifice actually saved the people of God forever.
In the prior chapter of this book, the prophet Ezekiel was instructed by God to act out certain judgment pictures. This continued in the fifth chapter with another display, which was then explained through the Word of the Lord. The picture was not a happy one, but a further confirmation of the trouble that would come upon the people of Jerusalem.
The Lord had his prophet act as both the barber and the one getting the haircut. He was to cut his hair and his beard, and then divide the hair into three equal groups. This was to be done with precision, measuring out the hair by weight using a scale. This was a puzzling detail that should cause us to consider that the Lord’s ways with men are not haphazard, but very deliberate.
We know that the Lord was not ultimately saying something about hair in this chapter, but about people. Our Savior would eventually make a similar point many years later in Matthew 10:28-31, when He said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” The illustration of hair is used in the Bible to identify a large number of particulars that are beyond our counting, but are well known to God. There were many people in Jerusalem. Their destiny was not a matter of chance, but a fact that was settled in the will of God.
One third of the hair would burn in the fire in the city at the end of the siege. Another third would die by the sword in the city. The final third would flee from the city at the end, but they would not escape disaster. They would also die by the sword, since they would be pursued and captured. There would be just a few people that would not have this end. They were represented symbolically by a small number of strands of hair that would be bound up in the skirts of the prophet’s robe. Even some of these would end up in the fire. Some would survive, all of this according to the Lord’s particular plan. (One thinks of the baptized church, and then within that number the elect church, that will one day be revealed as the true sons of God.)
God had set Jerusalem as the showcase of His Law and of His covenant faithfulness in front of the entire world. All the nations should have been able to come to this great city and admire the beauty of following the Lord God Almighty. Many should have seen the order and truth of the people of God, her kings and her priests, and should have asked for the reason that this city was so greatly blessed above all the other centers of influence throughout the world. The answer would have been obvious; because the God of Jerusalem was the real God, and He loved His people, and gave them great laws, and they were only too happy to delight in Him and to follow Him.
This was not what happened. God’s people not only rebelled against Him, they did it by committing more wickedness than the surrounding nations. They refused to follow His commandments and to walk in His love. What possible good news did the people of Jerusalem have for the rest of the world? They would not believe the Lord’s Word. Why would anyone else have been moved to follow the Lord by their example?
God would not bless this city. He would bring His judgments against her. That would be His testimony to the nations. They had chosen to rebel against Him more than those who did not have His Law. He would punish them with horrible things that even the other nations had not faced. They had the tremendous blessing of a sanctuary where God promised to be present with them. They had neglected this gift and had filled the temple with abominations. Consequently God announced that He would withdraw from them, and that He would have no pity on them.
What He had promised with Ezekiel’s razor, He now confirmed with His Word. Fire, the sword in the city, and the sword outside of the city would consume the people. Beyond these three, famine would destroy many, and even wild beats would come against them, taking away their young ones. This was God’s settled will against Jerusalem. He concluded His message with these solemn words: “I am the Lord; I have spoken.”
When the wrath of the Lord came upon Christ on the cross, it came upon Him definitively. The punishment was weighed out carefully. It was for His remnant, for those loved ones who were kept safe in the fold of His garments and not surrendered to the fire. For those beloved children the devastating horrors of hell came upon the perfect soul of Jesus of Nazareth. This great judgment is a source of some consolation to us now, for we know that the justice of God must have been fully satisfied. We clearly could not take God’s fury against us, which we deserved because of our sin.
Now the Lord’s church has a blessed opportunity to live by faith in Christ. We still may face trouble, but our debt has been fully paid. We need to follow Him faithfully, always being ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within us. We are more precious to Him than many sparrows. Even the hairs of our heads are numbered. Christ the Lord has died for us.
One day the earth as we see it now will have to make may for a new creation. Old things will be as if forgotten, and new things will be our everyday existence. God speaks in another place about creation being rolled up like a garment. There is a sense in which the old earth will be destroyed under the weight of all that has happened upon it, as if the creation itself had become so thoroughly defiled by all our sin.
In the days of Ezekiel, God had the prophet face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. What had the mountains do to deserve this? Mountains don’t sin, but God’s people did sin upon the mountains of Israel. Because of this sin, the mountains would be destroyed. What had they done on the mountains? Throughout the history of Israel and Judah we have heard of high places where the people went to sacrifice and to offer incense. They performed unauthorized rituals to God and even to their many idols. They built altars and defiled the land with their false worship. Now the Lord promises to scatter their dead bodies on their idolatrous altars.
Through the Lord’s judgment upon the mountains, upon the high places, the altars, the cities, and the people, God is accomplishing a very important purpose. When the slain fall in the midst of the people it is a testimony to something. Through these difficult days, the people will know that He is the Lord. He is the great I AM. He does not need anyone to defend Him. He has defended His own Name and His own great glory. For centuries He showed great forbearance. Now He displays His incomparable holiness and justice.
Everyone will not be destroyed. Some will be thrust out into other nations. In the places where they have been scattered they will remember the Lord, and they will despise themselves because of their sins. God had said that he would send His people into exile. In that day, the people would know that their God, the God of Israel, was the Lord. God is not only known through the good that He does. We sometimes ignore the many blessings that we receive, and forget that the Lord is the source of every good gift. It is a fact that we may more readily remember God when He disciplines us according to His promises.
Grief has physical manifestations. When people talk about a heartache, they speak the truth. There is a cry that is experienced by the grieving soul that is a deeper mourning than people without such grief have ever experienced. Children stamp their feet in disappointment when they do not get their way. Here, God tells Ezekiel, mature adults among His people will clap their hands and stamp their feet, not in the joy of a festival dance, but in the horrible grief of divine chastisement. Sword, famine, and pestilence, the familiar trilogy of prophetic disaster, will come upon the Lord’s people, as He had promised through the prophets long ago.
The reason for this is not mysterious. Their false worship, their idols, and their special spiritual places of their own creation were all deeply offensive to the true God. This was not a new message. God had raised up His people to be a display of Himself. They were to show forth His holiness and His mercy. God had designed His worship and Law for this purpose. His people simply would not do what He had commanded. They had other spiritual practices in mind, and even other gods that they insisted on worshiping.
God was not finished with His people, though so many of them would lose their lives. To the rest, He would show Himself through His wrath, and that would end up being a mercy for all who would receive the truth that the God who disciplined them was truly the Lord God Almighty, and not some lifeless idol. The key question would be whether His people could get the right and obvious message from the devastating events all around them.
Do we get the right message from the events of judgment that fill the history of salvation? Are we able to see that the Lord is God when we consider the flood, the trouble in the wilderness, or the exile of Israel and Judah? Most importantly do we know that the Lord is God when we hear the message of the cross?
The cross is the greatest fulfillment of divine judgment that has ever been known by man. It is far more than any trouble that the Old Testament people of God ever faced, far more even then the destruction of the older world in the flood. On the cross, hell came upon one man. Like the mountains of Israel, He had done nothing wrong. He willingly took the eternal wrath due against us for our sin. Do we see that only the Lord could have accomplished our full salvation through this death? Jesus is the Lord. He is great in holiness, and wonderful in mercy. His is the only Name by which we must be saved.
One day the present heaven and earth will have to give way to a new creation. The fire of God’s judgment is coming. Christ has faced that fiery ordeal for us, and has emerged victorious so that we may live forever in a land of permanent holiness.
“An end!” We are moving toward an end. The end is in God’s hand, and it always has been in God’s hand. That end will be glorious, so glorious that we live today in the light of that coming day. That end will not be a mere local end. It will be global. In the day of Ezekiel a lesser “end” came for Judah and Israel. Though that was not the big end, it was very big for the people who lived through it. That end came upon the four corners of Israel. The bigger coming day will come upon the four corners of the entire earth. That day will not only be a day of wrath. It will be a day of the fullest salvation for the people of God. It is the beauty of that salvation that gives us courage and strength as we feel the horror of smaller ends that come upon us in the trials that the Lord ordains for his people and his church in the current age.
In the judgment that God announced through Ezekiel, God’s wrath was the obvious emphasis of His message to His people. God would judge His people according to their ways. It is always the case that God will not be mocked. He is unwilling to have the supposed loyalty of His people at the very time when they have obvious abominations in their behavior and worship. What would it say about God if he were satisfied with our protests of loyalty despite our obvious and open rebellion against His commandments? He is the Lord. We should know that He is not satisfied with hypocrisy by the plain story of the history of Israel combined with the words of the prophets. This point is also strongly presented to us in the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees.
The end of Judah in the days of Ezekiel, or any other expression of the wrath of God, surprises us because God is so patient with us and is so full of mercy. We should not be confused into thinking that the Lord is lax regarding His demands of righteousness. We are helped in understanding this important point by the descriptions of times of uncompromising judgment as recorded in the Scripture. There comes a time when the Lord will not spare any longer. When wickedness first takes root in the church, that beginning may be just a seed. Pride is not a good seed in the life of an individual or in any faith community. When that ugly plant grows and blossoms it leads to violence and doom. Perhaps the history of Israel and Judah help us to see the seriousness of the Lord concerning willful and persistent unrighteousness. Even in the New Testament era the church is warned to repent, last our lamp stand be taken away. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church as a whole, but individual expressions of the church will be removed by the same Lord who ordained the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
We live our lives as if everything will always continue on as it has for many years. We buy and sell. We go out to our jobs, and we deal with the common frustrations and opportunities of our routine. We should not imagine that we will somehow escape the temporal troubles that would come upon us when the Lord brings an end to a church or even a nation. We will not be able to simply maintain our existing habits as if nothing were wrong. Our iniquity leads to trouble.
We should also not assume that we will somehow have the resources to push away trouble by our own force when it is Almighty God who brings judgment upon us. This is not just something for the world to consider, for judgment begins in the household of God. We could try to sound the alarm and marshal all our forces to put off all danger and trouble, but if God is bringing trouble upon us, we will not be able to force His hand away by our imagined strength. There is news that by itself is so bad, that every hand would be instantly weak, and every spirit within the most courageous men would immediately grow faint.
This kind of disaster can come upon us with such speed and force that we would be shocked by the events unfolding around us. Nonetheless, there is no need for us to be surprised. We have been warned by God sufficiently concerning His demands of holiness. We have heard His Word. What is our surprise? Did we imagine that we could buy our way out of every trouble? Did we think that our ingenuity would be the solution for every possible disaster?
Where we will surely fail, Christ has convincingly succeeded. His victory over the righteous wrath of God has not come from forcing the Father to back down from His holy demands. His victory for us has come through Christ taking the full weight of God’s righteous requirements upon Himself. He did not push away the wrath of God. He faced it. He did this for us.
Because of this tremendous act of power and love, the end has become for us a day of salvation. Let us not turn away today from the one who has won for us such a complete victory. It is a frightening thing to think of our exclusion from the assembly of those who have their hope and trust in Jesus Christ. Outside of Him, there simply is no hope for sinners, but in Him there is abundant help for us now and always.
The people of God were in exile. Ezekiel was with the elders of Judah, and the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon him there in the land of exile. The message from God came through His prophet in the hearing of those who had special responsibility for the Lord’s nation. They were leaders of the people, though they were in forced subjection to another nation by God’s hand.
God speaks through all of the things that He has made. Because of this speech, man is without excuse. Yet God also speaks with great clarity using words. He normally speaks those words through an appointed messenger. The words that we have recorded in the Bible are a completed deposit of this special revelation. We stand in great need of this speech of God, which we should value for what it is, the Word of God to us. Particularly those who have positions of responsibility among the people of God should recognize their great need to hear from the Lord.
In the case of the prophet Ezekiel, he not only hears from God or his angel, he may actually see the one who speaks in some way. The appearance of a human figure is presented to the prophet. There is more to this being than his humanity. The fire that seems to be a part of him is reminiscent of the divine representation to Moses in the burning bush. This man with a torso like gleaming metal is somehow more than a man. He shows this by his actions as well as his appearance, since he can pick up Ezekiel by a lock from the prophet’s head, and with the Spirit of God, lifts him up in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the court of the temple. There he is confronted by idolatrous images and actions that seem almost designed to bring God’s wrath upon those who embrace them. This is not only because such instruments of false worship are always against the Law of God, but especially because of their placement in the temple area, the place of God’s presence with His people.
What follows in the remainder of the chapter is an account of the various provocations against God by His people. In this vision Ezekiel digs into the wall, discovers an entrance, goes inside, and there sees all kind of images of the idols of the house of Israel. Even if such a wall as this one had never existed, the placement of this vision is appropriate, because here we are given a glimpse into the idolatrous affections of the hearts of God’s people. This sin begins in the heart and the mind. God has granted to us the amazing capacity to desire, to feel things deeply, and to meditate upon them. These capacities are to be dedicated to Him. We are to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. In our hearts we have instead plastered the inside walls of this temple of the Holy Spirit with idol upon idol, till these creeping things have obscured the image of God in us, and the light of the Lord that should be shining through us seems irreparably darkened by our sin and iniquity.
This is bad enough when the weakest people among the descendants of Jacob would be taken in by such strange worship. The next level of abomination Ezekiel is made to see is the participation of seventy leading men in burning incense to false gods. They fall prey to strange opinions and practices, convincing themselves that god will not notice such things. They also say, “The Lord has forsaken the land.” Instead of taking in this information as a further directive towards the deepest kind of repentance, the elders seem to seize upon it as a wild excuse in their determination to ignore the word of the Lord.
This is followed with visions of organized worship, first of women weeping for a false god, and then of men turning away from the presence of God so that they could worship the sun. In addition to these ritual sins of spiritual wickedness, they express their hatred of the Author of all that is good and right by filling God’s land with violence. The end result of their superstition, idolatry, and murderous oppression will be that God will not hear them when they call out to Him in distress. His eye will not spare, and he will have no pity.
This description of God’s people, his elders and the men and women in Jerusalem, bares no resemblance to the Son of God. They were insensible spiritually, with no remaining feelings of shame. They were full of all that was false, and covered in the depravity of all that was hateful and wicked. The Messiah, on the other hand, was as far away from even the thought of such sin as the east is from the west. He was entirely pleasing to His Father, without even the slightest blemish.
How is it, then, that He faced their end? How is it that the Father turned away from Him on the cross, since Jesus could never have ceased to be the Son of His love? It was surely for our sake that He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted. Divine justice came upon Him as our substitute. This alone is quite amazing, but it would not be enough if the only thing that was accomplished was the removal of the just penalty that was against us. If we no longer had the fact of hell to deal with but were still as fit for hell as ever, this would not be the fullness of good news that is ours in Christ. We have something more promised to us. We shall not be full of unbelief and wickedness forever.
By the cross our lives have been changed. We have been granted the presence of God in the temple of the Holy Spirit. We hear the Word of God in nature, and especially in the Bible, even now. We have a new heart that loves that Word. One day we will be lifted up to the heavenly sanctuary. Every trace of our sinful inclinations will be completely removed from us in every conceivable way. We are being cleansed now, but we shall one day be without spot or blemish or any such thing. The temple of God shall be forever holy. We will be there. In fact, in Christ, we will be the perfected temple of God. On that day we will not only hear our God, but we will see His Son face to face. With our resurrected bodies we will see Him as He is. This perfection of holiness is an essential component of what we understand to be the perfect salvation. Because of Christ, God hears us when we call. In fact, all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
When was the last time someone yelled something in Your presence for the purpose of emphasis? It is already a profound experience for this prophet to be taken in a vision by what must be an angel and to be brought from the place of exile back to the temple in Jerusalem. It is that much more startling when this powerful being from heaven cries out in a loud voice, calling for executioners. There appears to be no opportunity for some saving intercession in this vision. Powerful beings with capabilities of sure destruction are coming to carry out the deadly instructions given to them.
The beings that will carry out heaven’s sentence against God’s people in Jerusalem include six warriors and one scribe with a writing case. They are ready for action. We can readily imagine what the fighting beings are supposed to be doing. The small number of them necessary for the task tells us that they are powerful in their job of destruction. They will do what they are commanded to do with amazing speed, and will not be denied. What is the purpose of the one scribe? What or who will He be marking, and what will be the impact of this mark? We wait to discover this in the verses that follow.
As the operation of divine judgment is about to begin, the God of Israel is somehow seen and heard. His glory presence is at the Head of all that will happen here. It is God’s judgment at work in the midst of the holy city. The scribe is sent out first to mark those who will be spared. Like the blood on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites during the Passover, the mark written by this angelic scribe will be necessary for life. What is it that causes a person to be spared? This is an amazing detail. Those who are saved display this characteristic: They genuinely care about the horrible spiritual condition of the city of God. They sigh and groan over the abominations that are committed there.
The fighting angels follow the scribe. They are to strike down all who do not have the mark of deep care for the Lord’s great city. They are to do this without any pity. No special exception is made based on age or sex. Judgment begins with the people who worship God, and within that sanctuary, death comes first to the men there who are the elders, the men who are in a position of special authority and responsibility. This is where judgment begins, but it is not where it ends. It proceeds out into the whole city. The numbers of the slain will be horribly overwhelming.
Though there would seem to be no room for mercy, Ezekiel pleads for Israel. He falls on his face, alone before God, the single intercessor. What does he ask for? He does not deny that God is right to bring forth His righteous wrath against the city. He does not expect that there is any way to save the whole of the city. He asks whether God will destroy the remnant of Israel. This remnant is something that the Lord spoke of through the earlier prophets. Even back in the days of Abraham, that great man of God pleaded for the few who would be counted as righteous in the midst of God’s general destruction of the wicked. For the glory of the Lord’s Name, and for the fulfillment of His wonderful promises, there will be a small percentage of the whole, a remnant of God’s choosing, who will be kept. These are presumably the ones who have been marked by the scribe, the few who were deeply troubled by the sorry condition of the Lord’s city.
From the Lord’s response it is clear that there will be no other vessels of God’s mercy than those who have that special mark. The offense against God has been deep. He has been patient for generations, but now judgment has come. What particular statement of the offenders is noted by God in His refusal to expand mercy to others? They had claimed that God had given up on His land, and they had presumed that they could continue in their sin, because the Lord would not see. It was their denigration of the character of Israel’s God that seems to have sealed their fate. Like those in the Lord’s church even today who have a hardened rejection of God’s mercy, and who will not repent despite the gravest chastising discipline, these rebellious people in the days of Ezekiel are asking for the worst kind of trouble that can be known on the earth.
The chapter ends with the speedy return of the angelic scribe. “I have done as you commanded me,” he says to the Lord. Yes, it is finished.
Hundreds of years later, the most righteous servant of the Lord would be able to say these words. He had done all that His Father had commanded, not for judgment to begin against the church, but for mercy to be extended to the remnant. He did all that was commanded. He loved His Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength, and He loved His neighbor with the fullness of love that was supremely expressed through His death on the cross. He was able to say, “It is finished.”
One day He will return in judgment. Until then we are imitators of His love for His church. We mourn over the abominations that we see in the city of God in our lifetime, just as those who have been marked by the Holy Spirit have mourned in every era. We know that God knows how to save the righteous and He knows how to judge the wicked. Though we deserve the fate of the wicked, we rejoice that we are included with the righteous, for the blood of the Lamb of God has been sprinkled on the doorposts of our hearts, and gathering angels will indeed rescue us for salvation rather than gather us for the wrath that we deserve.
God is a Spirit. He does not have a body like man. Jesus is God, but He is also fully man, which is why He is visible. Yet God has made Himself visible in some sense at different times, taking on an appearance before someone to make some point or other. In this prophetic book we are now used to thinking about the presence of God in terms of His glory chariot and His throne. Details of color are mentioned and angelic beings are described.
All of this is not so that we will know what God looks like, since there is some sense in which the Bible tells us that no man has ever seen God. Despite this fact mentioned in the first chapter of John’s gospel, the apostle goes on to state that “the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” Jesus has made God known to us. What we saw before Jesus came were various visible images that simply confirmed to us the divine presence at a key moment in salvation history, or confirmed a key message from God through an amazing appearance. As we hear in Ezekiel this message from the temple, the chariot and the throne confirm to us that the voice that the prophet hears is the voice of God, perhaps through an angelic mediator.
The angelic scribe from the previous chapter is then instructed to go in among the whirling wheels of the glory chariot. He is to fill his hands with burning coals. It is obvious that this is a very dangerous image. First, the picture presented is something that no man would want to act out. To put one’s hands near those wheels and to pick up fire from heaven is beyond us. This is even more the case when we think of what this represents. It is a picture of the judicial presence of God who is bringing horrible disaster upon Jerusalem. Think of this biblical principle: Judge not, lest ye be judged. Who can be engaged in this work of touching the wrath of God in order to cast it down upon others? In our current sinful condition we cannot be anywhere near this scene. We would just as soon presume to rush up to the heavenly throne of God in Revelation 4 and 5 and rip open the seals on His book of divine woes coming upon the whole earth. A holy angel can do as he is commanded here. Nevertheless, consider this: One day, purified from all sin, we will even judge angels. How did we become so pure that we will be able to do that? This could never have happened except through the blood of the perfectly pure Messiah.
When Solomon dedicated the temple, we were told in 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 that “the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.” Now we have the glory cloud filling the temple, but no longer is their any joy at this amazing presence of God. Here God has come not to bless the temple or the people, but to judge them, and then to depart from the place of His presence.
The vision is frightening, and the sound of it must have been terrifying. We are told that the sound of the wings of the cherubim was like the voice of the Lord God Almighty. The angels are placing heavenly fire into the hands of the angelic scribe. He then goes out from that place, presumably to execute God’s vengeance upon the city with the fire of the Lord’s judgment. When we think that we would like to be near God, this scene is not what we imagine. We do want to be near Him when He comes with blessing in His hands. We could not bear to be anywhere near Him if he should come with His holy angels to execute His wrath. The description of this chariot throne is at least very similar to what we were first introduced to in the beginning of the book, but the occasion here is different, and it is not comforting.
What follows is further description of the angelic presence alongside of God on this occasion. Much of this requires no further comment, but there is one other detail that should be noted. The glory of the Lord seems to be on the way up and out. Is this the end of God’s presence here? When the glory of the Lord came at the dedication of Solomon’s temple there was a great sense of a new beginning in the presence of God. Now we cannot shake the feeling that we are seeing a very important end, and it is very sad to consider what this would mean for all the glories of God’s operations among men.
When Christ came as the new temple of God, something old was surely finished. We cannot have the temple in Jerusalem as the place of God’s special presence, and still have room for Christ as the fulfillment of that earlier picture. The picture must ultimately give way to the reality of worship in Christ. The old had to make way for the new. The place of worship was no longer in Jerusalem, for those who would worship God would only be able to do so in Jesus, the new temple. To worship in Christ is to worship in Spirit and in truth. We have been united to this new glory temple through faith in the Son of God.
Because of the abiding peace that has come from His acceptable sacrifice, that presence is one of great blessing. In Him the elect will not face the judgment of His presence in wrath. What we have in Him today we will have in Him forever. His presence of peace and joy will never change into a different presence of fire and fear for those who have fled to Christ for refuge.
Furthermore, the joy of temple living is now an everlasting joy. Our great priest lives forever to make intercession for us. There is no further assault coming against the true temple of God, Jesus Christ. Evil hands came against Him in His earthly ministry, but they cannot lay a finger upon Him now. He is coming again. For us, His coming is one of the fullest salvation. Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in the wonderful glory temple of the Holy Spirit.
When God sent destruction upon Jerusalem, He did not act against a faceless city. God has an exhaustive knowledge of all His creatures. He knew all of the people in the city. In particular, He brings attention to two specific leaders who had somehow risen to prominence after the former ruling class had been carried off to Babylon. These two men are mentioned by name, and their words are recorded. Their counsel to the city is called wicked. These leaders were not leading God’s people in heartfelt repentance for their sin. They were not seeking to hear the Word of God and to obey. God revealed the idle words of these men to His prophet.
Not only was the Lord aware of the words of these men, He was also aware of their thoughts. That is why He says here, “So you think, O house of Israel.” People who quickly rise to power often make their plans in pride. They will come, they will go, and it will all be by their plan. Even if they die, they imagine that it will be by their prediction. There is no sense of the will of a sovereign God in their words or in their meditations. They do not consider how their own actions have led to trouble for so many people. There is no sense of remorse, or any willingness to admit their responsibility for the sanctions that have come upon the land. They are filled with pride like new wine, and they are ready to burst out of their skins. They will not humble themselves before God.
The truth is that God’s people had not walked in His statutes. They had not obeyed His rules. This had led to horrible difficulties for all concerned. If they would not follow the Lord’s ways in former days, what was their way of life? People have to live by some standard. Even when people are doing what seems right in their own eyes, where did their desires spring from? In this case, the source of their philosophy of life is revealed. They observed the rules of the nations all around them, and they chose to follow their ways, rather than obey the Law of God.
At this very moment, while Ezekiel was prophesying, word came to the prophet that one of the two men mentioned earlier had just died. Rather than gloat over the demise of one who had been censured, Ezekiel uses this announcement to plead before God for the remaining people who are yet alive. Will they all die? Will anyone be left alive?
God has a word of encouragement now for His people who are in exile. It may appear that the lucky ones have remained in the land, but that is not the case. The remaining people in the land had misinterpreted providence. They had assumed that the fact of their being left behind in the land was a sign of God’s favor of them over their exiled brothers. The truth is that God uses this false theory to announce that He has great intentions of calling back home those who have been exiled. There is no time schedule hear, just a word to give hope to those who would receive it.
One day there will be a new generation that will return to the land. That generation will have a new way about them. They will clean out the land of all the idolatry of former years. They will have a new heart from God. They will obey the Lord. They will be His people. He will be their God. While there would be a small fulfillment of this in the restoration of the people in the years ahead, the more significant fulfillment would come in the New Covenant era. It is then that the Spirit would be poured out, and the people of God would be those who had been born again from above. Even more than this, the day would eventually come when the people of God would all have the fullness of a heavenly Spirit. This is still our hope to this day, and we know that this is what will be granted to us when the Lord Jesus returns.
For now, those who have no gift of faith and repentance have a bleak future. God will bring their deeds upon their own heads. The glory chariot lifts away from the temple and the city of Jerusalem, and the Spirit of God carries Ezekiel back to the place of exile. There he brings a word of hope to the exiles in this place who might have been easily discouraged. God yet reigns. God has a plan. The place to be now is not in Jerusalem. God will restore the fortunes of His exiled people.
No matter how good life was in Babylon, or later in Jerusalem, or even now in the church, the promise of God is bigger than our best days here below. Because of the Son of God, our hope goes far beyond the borders of Israel, and far beyond our own ability to repent and believe. Christ has supplied all the necessary merit for a bigger blessing than you have ever seen or experienced.
In that day of blessing to come, it is still the fact that God knows us by name. His care for us is not faceless. As He was particular in judgment, so He is particular in blessing. He has a plan for each of us that fits the best person we are to be within an environment of the best love that can ever be known. Such news is good for our souls. Even now we rejoice in the life to come, though for a little while we may still suffer.
Most people are born into this world with eyes that see and with ears that hear. Despite possessing the organs of sight and hearing, we have hearts that are unwilling to see and hear the truth about God. Our problem is not our physical inability. It is our moral and spiritual inability. We do not want to listen to God. Idols may have eyes and ears painted on wood or chiseled into stone, but of course that idol could never see or hear. God tells us that those who worship such objects become like them. This is their moral inability. They will not submit to God.
God’s people were rebellious. They seemed to lack spiritual sight and spiritual hearing. The Lord had warned them for many generations through many prophets. Now the time had come for exile. The Lord is slow to exile His people, but it eventually happens after many years of hardened resistance to the call for godly repentance. Ezekiel, at the Lord’s instruction, now acts out the part of one going into exile. This is not a superior method of communicating the message of God. It is very inferior to the clarity of simple preaching. But what can be done when people refuse to hear? No more words are left. The exile is really going to happen.
The prophet’s play-acting showed that not everyone was going to cooperate with this exile. Ezekiel digs through the wall to show what some will do to attempt to run from God and his appointed agents of discipline. Their efforts will not be successful, but they will make their attempts.
Would the people receive this message? Would they ask the prophet, “What are you doing?” If people are determined not to hear, they may be very careful not to ask questions. They may have an unavoidable understanding of what it is all about, but they may wish to do what they can to evade the message. A caption is now given to add to the parable that was lived out before them. What Ezekiel has done is a sign. It is about the remaining leaders and the people who are still in Jerusalem. They shall go into exile. Even the highest leader among them will try to escape, but he will be unsuccessful. God will spread His net over him. God will use the Babylonians as His snare. He will die in a foreign land.
This will not only be the fate of a select few. Almost everyone around the ruling group who come to their aid will also die. A few will survive to give testimony to the sin of God’s people. God is the Lord, and He will be known even in His righteous discipline of His own people. This was a significant message, since there were others who were claiming something very different than this. They were suggesting that any difficulties would soon be over, and that those who had been taken away to Babylon up to this point would soon be back. Ezekiel lived out the true message from the Lord in acting out the exile, and then added an explanation for any who would have ears to hear. The first exile play was followed by a similar one with a second explanatory message. The prophet ate and drank with trembling and dismay. Others would soon do the same, and there would be nothing left in the land as the people were taken away.
The rejection of the truth among God’s people had become proverbial at this point in the history of the Lord’s covenant people. They seemed to be so confident that the warnings of true prophets were false that they had a saying with which they comforted themselves. “The days grow long, and every vision comes to nothing.” The point of the proverb was this: Prophets talk with their dire warnings, but nothing actually happens. Everything continues on as it always has.
It is amazing that such a saying could be spoken at this point in their lives as a nation. Disaster is all around them. Some people have already been taken away. Could they really believe that every true vision of judgment would really come to nothing?
It is still the case, after the coming of Christ, that some people reject the message of His return in judgment. They do not see the cross for what it is. The cross is the greatest display of both judgment and mercy ever known to man. God’s wrath came upon our innocent Substitute that we might dwell eternally in righteousness and safety. Still there are scoffers who continue to follow their sinful desires and who proudly mock saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” They overlook the fact of the flood. They ignore the truth of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and centuries later by the Romans. Most of all they do not see the warning and hope of the cross – a warning since this is what we deserve, a hope because the sins of all who believe have been completely atoned for.
No one should presume that the Lord will not keep His promises. The message for us is well stated in God’s words through Ezekiel. “The word that I speak will be performed.” The Savior who died for us in mercy and who satisfied the demands of God’s justice for all who turn to Him and call upon His name, will Himself return to judge the living and the dead. In the words of Psalm 2, “Kiss the Son His wrath to turn, lest ye perish in the way, for His anger soon will burn. Blessed are those that on Him stay.” He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
God has chosen to speak through men. A true prophet receives His message from God. He then speaks the message to the people as the Lord has instructed him. To the ones who listen, there is a sense in which the prophet is simply a man speaking words or performing certain symbolic actions. The listener does not hear the voice of God in the same way that the prophet does. He does not go where the prophet goes in his prophetic vision. The listener may two men with contradictory messages speak, both claiming to be true prophets. Which one really brings the message of God? This method of communicating to people is subject to great abuse. A false prophet has not had the experiences of a true prophet, but he looks very similar to the true prophet when he speaks to the people.
This has always been a challenge and it will continue to be a challenge until the Lord returns. This problem is certainly something of which God is well aware. The false prophet will be judged by the Lord. Those who are eager for a false message will eagerly listen to lies. They will convince themselves that the message that they have heard is from God. Their false messages will be of no lasting benefit to anyone. The true prophet may face great suffering in this world, but the Lord will surely remember his faithful service. The people of God will ultimately hear and believe the truth, and will be kept in the way of faith by the invisible power of God. As Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
It is very unwise for people to take upon themselves the office of a prophet and to speak lies to people under the Name of the Lord God Almighty. Though even today they may still gather an audience among those who claim to be God’s people, the day will come when the sons of God are revealed forever. On that day there will be a separation of the wicked from the righteous. An aspect of that separation will be the clear distinction between true prophets and false prophets. Those who presume to speak lies and who call these things the word of the Lord, unless they repent, will not be found in the register of the true Israel. Such people will have no place in the Lord’s house.
The false prophets insisted that there was peace coming. While Jeremiah was denouncing these men in Judah, Ezekiel was denouncing such false prophets from the place of captivity, where those had been brought who were part of the early stages of the exile. Of course the people in Babylon would have wanted to believe that they would be back in the land of Israel almost immediately. They would have loved to believe that their captors would be destroyed and that God would bring about an immediate age of glory for Israel like the days of King Solomon. New Testament believers would love to believe that those who trouble them would be immediately converted to faith in Christ. We would love everyone in our families to believe and to perfectly obey the Lord immediately. We would be thrilled to have perfect physical and spiritual health throughout the church. To prophesy this kind of immediate “peace” would be a lie. It is a wall of dried mud smeared with whitewash. The foolish might suspect that it is a structurally sound wall, but when the torrent of rain comes, it will be evident to all that it was a fake.
It is not only men who are acting as false prophets. There have also been women in every age who are involved in false spiritual arts. In the days of Ezekiel they made little idolatrous objects for people, wrist bands and veils that were supposed to have special powers or serve as reminders of some false god or message. People who listened to these lies were trapped in this kind of foolishness to the damage of their own souls. Though they may have seemed attractive or innocent, these women were like brutal hunters, hunting down the souls of people. The prophet tells us that God would hunt them down and capture them. As always, if we set ourselves against the Lord, we will soon discover that we are no match for God.
Whether false prophets were men or women, they would not have their way. They have discouraged the righteous and encouraged wicked men and women who would never repent. No matter how attractive, interesting, talented, or spiritual they might seem to be, they will be exposed as enemies of God and His people.
In every era there are those who would presume to speak for God, though they were never called by God as prophets. Those who were against Jesus accused Him of being a false prophet. They saw Him as dangerous. He spoke a message of peace, but it was not a message that they wanted to hear. His works were signs that He was the true Messiah. There was also the testimony of a voice from heaven. But beyond that, we can examine His life and His words to see how well they fit with the Word of God.
When we do this we can see that everything that He did and everything that He said was in perfect accord with the Scriptures. His words were not the words of a madman or a fool. His acts of mercy were beautiful, and were performed without self-promotion. Another test of the truth of the messenger is in the willingness of the prophet to suffer for the message. The willing death of our Messiah on the cross together with the amazing sign of the resurrection was an astounding vindication of His status as the greatest of all prophets. He not only speaks the true Word of God; He is the Word of God who came from heaven to bring a true message of heavenly peace that will never be taken away.
Elders or leaders within the covenant community have a very important role in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. They provide a structure for accountability that we all need if we are to make progress in our service of God. They need to be able to teach people the truth of God’s Word. One of their most important functions is to be examples to the people of what it means to be a godly person. It should be spiritually safe for people to follow the elders within their congregation of the Lord’s disciples.
When there is a deep-seated corruption within the leadership of any assembly, it is hard to imagine that the people are going to find a way to rise above the impiety of their leaders. In the case of Ezekiel, certain of the elders visit him, presumably to hear a word from God, or to inquire of the prophet. Though their outward behavior would seem to be commendable, God gives Ezekiel an insight into the souls of these leading men. They have taken idols deeply into their hearts. In their minds they have a stumbling block of some false god that they secretly love. What can the people of God do, and what will become of them when even their spiritual leaders are secret idolaters? The leaders may still want to know some hidden information that they hope to get from God’s prophet, but the Lord will not reveal to them what they desire to know. As God responds to these people, we learn that the rest of the people of Israel have done as these leaders have done. The nation is a nation steeped in secret idolatry.
What should these foolish elders do who have committed their hearts to idols and who secretly bow down before strange objects of worship? They must repent of their evil. They need to turn away from their false gods. This is true not only for the leaders but for all of the people, even for those strangers who are simply traveling through the land. They better turn away from their idols before they would presume to inquire of the Lord’s prophet. Otherwise, instead of getting an answer from the prophet, it may be that God will answer more directly in hands-on judgment against the idolaters. In a way that is obvious to all, such men may be cut off from the people of God directly by God. It is a fearful thing when God Almighty confronts an evil man, when the appointed prophetic mediator is pushed out of the way and a sinner needs to face God more directly.
God will not put up with any of this hypocrisy. Even if His prophet speaks a word to people like that, God will turn it around to punishment for both the inquirer and the prophet. We cannot fool God. The Lord hates idolatry, and He will punish those who claim to hear him or speak for him who have dedicated themselves to false gods. If God’s people would only repent of all this evil, then there would be hope for them. They would be His people and He would be their God. The way of safety and blessing is actually very clear.
The prophet of God is not a spiritual guru for hire. He does not perform his services as one who is ready to do whatever is necessary as long as the customer can pay the price. He is to be a true representative of God. If God cuts off bread from the land, if He brings a sword, if He sends disease upon the land, the best prophets of the Old Testament cannot change the mind of God when He has determined to punish iniquity. Things have come to that point during the days of Ezekiel. The prognosis is not good, and there is nothing that could be done except a serious and complete repentance. Noah could not change God’s mind. Neither could Daniel or Job. They could not even save their own families at this point. They could clear their own names by repenting, but they could not save the people. God will judge them unless they really repent. Having the right prophetic man, like an Ezekiel, reveal some hidden secrets of God, will not turn away the wrath of God. If the elders think that the prophet can solve their problems as some quick fix without real repentance on their part, they are deeply mistaken.
Just a few will be saved from the Lord’s judgment upon Jerusalem. There will be a small number of survivors left to live. All of this has not been done without a cause. The way of life has been patiently displayed before the people, but they have been unwilling to repent.
A generation with ignorant and immoral elders in positions of authority in the Lord’s house is a generation that is headed for trouble, and probably very quickly. We have a great Shepherd over the church. He has never filled His heart with the love of idols. He has never bowed down before strange religious objects. His life was one of whole-hearted devotion to God. At the very top of the chain of command within the church is a Man without spot or blemish or any such thing. It is our task to be honest with Him. Have we taken idols into our hearts? If so, God surely knows. Have we loved false gods and fallen down before an abomination? The call to repentance is still before us today, so many centuries after the ministry of Ezekiel.
Will not God grant His elect true repentance? I don’t know what false thing we might be holding on to. Family, prestige, wealth, ease, approval from men, fame, emotional comfort: All these things must not be allowed to be objects of false worship in our hearts. We are to worship Almighty God, and serve Him alone. There is only One who made us, and there is only One who died for our sins. So much of what we want is so easily entangled in our idolatrous affections. May the Lord who rescued us from hell through His death on the cross, rescue us again now, so that we will submit to His holy will and rejoice in the glory of His divine excellence.
Israel is likened to a vine, a vineyard, or a fig tree in many passages in the Bible. Israel was to be a fruitful plant. This is something that the Lord demanded. The people of Israel were to be God’s spiritual family, and they should have had spiritual fruit befitting a nation that had heard the Law of God and had been rescued out of bondage. Their freedom should have been used to worship and serve their Redeemer. They should have loved His Law, and produced the fruit of godly attributes, like those the listed in Galatians 6: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If the Israelites had served God in this way of fruitfulness, they would have been a shining light to the nations around them of what happens to a people who love and follow the living God.
But Israel had cut herself off from her root through idolatry and rebellion. Like the branch of a grape vine that has been cut away from the source of everything necessary for life, of what use was she now? God did not start with a mighty oak or a redwood tree. He did not look for the tree of the forest that would have been of some obvious use for building or for making beautiful and useful objects by the hand of a skilled carpenter. He picked a vine, a plant capable of bearing grapes, but when compared with the great hardwood trees of the forest, a very weak plant, a plant that would be of no use except if it could yield fruit. What then if the vine yielded no useful grapes? Of what use would such a plant be to the owner of the vineyard?
When the Lord returns in judgment He comes with fire. The scraps of wood from the vine that the prophet speaks of in this chapter do have a use if you want to start a fire. Before you can get the large logs burning well, smaller pieces like these are helpful to use as kindling. If judgment of the world begins with the household of God, it is appropriate that His own nation would be the kindling in a larger blaze that will surely come. How sad it is that the Lord’s vine, a vine that should have been very fruitful, now finds its purpose as an object that is easily ignited in order to aid in the coming of a greater judgment. When it has served its purpose as kindling, can a few charred pieces be retrieved from the fire and be used for some more noble use? It was useless before it was burned. Of what use will the Lord’s rebellious house be when it has faced exile and crippling discipline? The Lord’s own nation bears the marks of His righteous anger.
If a few embers somehow are removed from the fire, what can anyone do with them? The only thing to do is to throw them back in and let the fire catch them again until they are consumed. God has set His face against them, and for very good reason. He will make his land desolate, because they have not believed in His Word and have disregarded His Law.
It would be easy to imagine that this would be the very end of the story for the Lord’s vineyard. They are branches that have been pruned from the vine. They faced the onslaught of the Assyrians. Then came the Babylonian exile. Why would we suppose any future beyond this punishment? Yet we remember God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We remember that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. There must be some plan yet remaining for the descendants of the patriarchs.
Some six centuries from the days of Ezekiel, a new Branch would come from the old stump of Israel. He would form a new Vine, in a sense. Many Jews and a host of Gentiles would find their life by abiding in this Vine. This most holy Branch was actually cut off the older vine of Israel and was thrown away as a useless branch by those who were the leaders and rulers of the Old Covenant people. He was despised and rejected by men more generally, and no one considered Him to be anything other than a cursed man, fit only to die on a tree. Once again, it would appear that there was no hope for Israel.
Yet this new Vine would be planted in the soil of that cursed death for sinners on a Roman cross. From that place of sadness, the fruit of resurrection life would spring up in those who still gather to remember the one who died for us, the one who now lives forever as our Savior. There is a way of life for both Jew and Gentile in Him. He is a most fruitful vine, and in Him we are a new Israel. He is a child of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He came from the tribe of Judah, from the line of David. He is the King of the Jews, and the Redeemer of God’s chosen people who were slaves of sin. He is Jesus the Messiah, and He lives.
The Babylonian exile was not the end of the story, because God had made ancient promises that He had no intention of breaking. One day we will see the fulfillment of all of His promises in the New Jerusalem. We eagerly await that day, with confidence that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Abide in Him. He is the vine. We are the branches. Apart from Him we can do nothing, but in Him we will have the fullness of the fruit of the promised Holy Spirit.
God is the One who made Israel to be His special nation. Her heritage was just like that of the other Aramean nations all around her. God chose Abraham and Sarah in the midst of all the rest of their family members and friends, and He made special promises to them. Israel is spoken of in Ezekiel 16 as a baby girl and then as a young woman. The day of her birth only displayed the coarseness of her background. She was not cared for or loved by anyone, but was left to die by exposure, cast out upon the open field. But God came by and saw her in her blood, and spoke the word that made all the difference for her. “Live!” That word was more than a command. It was also a divine promise.
What God truly begins, He will surely bring to completion. He not only saved this baby girl, He provided for her everything that she needed, and even prepared her for the day when she would be His royal bride. He took away all of her shame, and gave her everything that she needed for true beauty, health, and enjoyment. All of this came from the Lord God. She was famous among the nations because of her beauty. She had all the wonderful privileges of a queen, though she had come from a background of no importance or advantage.
One would expect this queen to be filled with gratitude and dedicated to the service of her king. Instead she behaves like the most shameless and immoral prostitute. She takes all the things that she has been given and uses them to go after other men. Her idolatry is a rejection of her royal husband. It is rejection of her position as His blessed bride. It is the worst ingratitude. It is spiritual adultery. Israel has been given beauty, renown, garments, jewels, oil, incense, and bread. She used all these things in her prostitution. Worse than that, she has been given the great gift of bearing the king’s children, but she has sacrificed them to her lust for idols, even delivering them up as an offering by fire to the gods of the nations. She has forgotten God’s mercy and has brought about a horrible breach in her relationship to the greatest King.
She could have been content with the best of all husbands. Instead Israel has taken her lewdness into the public square. She has sought out Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians. She had everything that she could need or want from the hand of her God, but she would not be satisfied with this great provision. She imagined that she was missing something, and thought that she could find what she needed from these other nations and their gods.
There was one way in which Israel was not like a common prostitute. To the prostitute comes some form of payment, but these nations and their gods have done nothing good for Israel. In fact she scorned payment from them. Rather than receive payment from her lovers, she gave them gifts. Her adulterous impulse was so strong that she did not need to be enticed by money or gifts. She wanted to do the wrong thing, regardless of the cost. She was insistent upon it. Her depravity was so great that it was irrational and, in a way, pitiful.
What will be the Lord’s response to this great provocation? Israel wanted foreign lovers. She will get what she wanted. She loved the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians, and so she will get them. They will not love her. They will be agents of her destruction. This has happened already to some extent by the time of Ezekiel’s prophesy. Egypt has been of no use to the people of God, and they will be a false hope for some even after the destruction of Jerusalem. Assyria was the destroyer of the northern tribes, and had inflicted great damage upon Judah. The Babylonians would bring about a further exile of the people of Judah and would destroy the city and the temple. God’s bride wanted foreign men, and she got foreign men.
Like mother, like daughter. Israel had returned to the ways of the people from which she came. God had rescued her after she had been abandoned, but she eventually returned to the pagan practices of the nations from which she had come. Jerusalem was not particularly distinguishable from Samaria, and both of them were not all that different from Sodom. If anything, God’s people had become worse than the world. She was corrupt in worship and in behavior. She had ignored the cry of the poor in her day of prosperity, and had abandoned the Law of God.
The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have enjoyed the warmth and security of a close relationship with God. They rejected Him. The God of Israel would one day call many descendants of other nations into close fellowship with Him, and yet many from Israel would be excluded from the relationship that once was hers alone. How would any woman feel when she saw others peacefully enjoying the privileges that she had so foolishly scorned? She would be jealous, and that jealousy would eventually serve its purpose as many from Israel would return to her God and King.
God sent His Son to claim a bride. Many from Israel would reject Him, but as Gentiles embraced Him and were brought into covenant with Israel’s God, some Jews would reconsider their rejection of their King. This has continued to happen over the course of centuries. What if the descendants of the Philistines, Syrians, and Babylonians find their meaning and joy in Israel’s God? What if they are shown to be the beloved of the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ? What will many more Jews think when their enemies turn to God through Christ?
This kind of plan would allow the Lord to both save Gentiles, and to restore many Jews who are made jealous again for their God. It would be like the Lord to do this, for as Ezekiel says, the Lord will remember His covenant. God promised Israel great things from her youth, and He is not a God to forget His promises. The Lord has made a new covenant in Christ that has resulted in the salvation of many Jews and Gentiles. Through this New Covenant, God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are being fulfilled. He has atoned for the sins of many people through His death on the cross. When His Israel was faithless, the Lord remained faithful. He has paid the price of faithfulness in the death of His Son. He made promises to Israel when He found her dying in her blood. The Lord keeps His word. He will not deny Himself.
When Jesus taught He often used parables. He was not the first person to do this. Some of the Old Testament prophets used parables in their teaching. What was unique about Jesus’ teaching is that many of His parables were spoken without any explanation of the riddles that they contained. Others were explained only to His closest disciples. The crowd was left wondering about the meaning of the story. This method of teaching was a form of judgment speech, where God chose to conceal His message from the rebellious nation, since they had hardened their hearts, and would not listen to Him.
In the case of Ezekiel 17 we are given a judgment story against the people of God, but the story is explained. There is a great eagle who comes and takes something from the top of a tall cedar tree. He takes the topmost of its twigs and takes it far away to a land of trade. He also takes a seed of the land and plants in the home soil, not in the land of trade. That seed does very well, becoming a spreading vine. The vine grows and begins to bend its roots and shoot forth its branches to a second great eagle, different from the first one.
The question is posed: Will this vine thrive? We had been told that the vine was doing very well. We might have thought that it certainly would survive. Instead, the answer to the question seems angry, as if someone powerful has been insulted. Who was insulted? Was it the first eagle, jealous over the vine’s interest in the second eagle? Is there some other figure who is concerned about this vine and this land? In any case, it appears from the way the questions are asked that this vine has done something horribly wrong and presumptuous by going off to the second eagle. It will easily be pulled up from its roots. There is no word in the story itself about what happened to the first twig mentioned earlier that was taken from the very top of the cedar tree. We do not yet know what the fate of that plant will be, only that it was taken away to a land of trade.
If this were one of Jesus’ parables we would perhaps be left to wonder, but here God gives the interpretation of the story to Ezekiel who communicates it as a part of his prophecy. The king of Babylon was the first eagle, apparently a symbol of royal power. He came to Jerusalem, the land of the tall cedar tree. The twig on the very top of the tree was the king of Judah who was taken away to Babylon in the earlier exile. The other seed that was planted in the land was another descendant of David, who the Babylonian king put in a position of authority. That seed was to be his vassal in the land of Israel. He was allowed to prosper, as long as he understood the terms of their arrangement; that he was to be a vassal of the king of Babylon. But this official from the royal family rebelled against the king of Babylon by sending ambassadors to Egypt, a competing regional power. He sought horses and an army to rebel against the Babylonians.
While the angry party in the story could easily be the Babylonian king, it appears likely that we should look beyond the human instrument of judgment to God Himself. God declares His intentions using the words “as I live” to express His own solemn commitment to overturn the rebellion of Zedekiah, who was the official left in the land. God was the one using the Babylonians as agents of discipline against His people. An appeal to Egypt would be of no use in such a situation. The power of Babylon would come against him, and he would be held accountable for breaking his agreement as if it were an agreement with God Himself.
As the Lord’s speech continues it becomes very clear that the ultimate problem that the people of Israel face is not the wrath of any foreign king. They face the anger of God. To break a covenant with the king of Babylon is to despise God’s oath, for the Lord is using the Babylonians to discipline His people. The Lord will surely not allow them to prosper in their appeal to Egypt. The treachery that has been committed has not been done against some earthly official, but against God. The judgment against Judah will be devastating.
We might have though that this could be the end of the story for now, but the Lord returns to the detail of the sprig taken from the top of the cedar tree. Somehow from that twig will come a great tree that the Lord will plant on a high and lofty mountain. That tree will be like the one that Jesus speaks about in the parable of the mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” The Lord does not explain this little story to us in Matthew 13. We are not even told whether the details in the parable are to be thought of as good or bad.
It is very surprising in our Old Testament story of judgment from Ezekiel 17 that we are ending with a note of hope in a detail about a coming kingdom tree. There will be a descendant of the King of Judah, the one brought off to Babylon, who will be the long-expected Son of David, the King of Israel, and the greatest King of the Kingdom of heaven. Though His kingdom will seem to have the most humble beginnings, it will be the most amazing society of blessing that has ever been known. The coming twig from the top of a cedar in Lebanon will, through His death and resurrection, be planted by the Lord as the great Kingdom tree, and all the families of the earth will receive the great covenant blessings given to Abraham in this great Messiah King. In the context of everything else that is going wrong in Ezekiel 17, the coming of a Kingdom tree is a note of the greatest hope in a sea of divine judgment against His rebellious Old Testament people.
God is the giver of life, but He is also the one who takes life away. There are billions of people that have lived on earth. Not one of them should be thought of as insignificant. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Each person is a responsible moral agent before God. The Lord has revealed various things that He loves and other things that He hates. Some people have been given more of this revelation than others. Each of us is responsible for the revelation that has been given to us. Rather than admit our responsibility before God for our acts of rebellion, we add to our sin by trying to blame our problems on someone else. At the time of Ezekiel, it had become a proverb among the Lord’s people that the fathers had eaten sour grapes and that this had affected the teeth of their children.
The point of the proverb was to shift the blame for the exile from the current generation to some prior generation. This is a useless distraction from the duty of every generation to repent of all known sin and to trust the Lord with our lives. In this chapter an extended example is given to encourage the people of God to repent of their sins even now, and not to waste their time trying to shift the blame for their sin to former generations, or to attempt to blame God for the consequences of their sins.
The providences that God brings into each life are tailor-made for us by our Creator. There is nothing accidental or random about our lives. While we know the source of all things, it does not mean that we understand the meaning of every event that happens to us. Two things we should keep in mind. First, we should never think that we are stuck in a life of sin merely because of the actions of former generations. Second, we should never excuse ourselves from our continual duty to repent of sin. These two things are related. Some people convince themselves that they are utterly trapped in the consequences of the sins of others, and they use this incorrect idea to excuse themselves from the duty that they have to repent and believe.
Ezekiel tells the story of a supposed righteous man. He follows the law of God and he shall live. His son is a violent murderer who ignores God’s commandments. Such a man should not presume to have life for another day. Certainly his father’s righteousness will not count for him. If that wicked man should have a son and that son should turn away from his father’s evil and do good, that young man will live. Nonetheless, his righteousness will not be able to count for his father. The way of the Law is that each many faces the consequences of his own sin.
There is always an opportunity to turn from evil and live, but there is a further duty not to turn away from good in order to pursue evil. The first step of righteousness for any follower of God is to recognize our complete dependence upon the Lord and to rest in Him. From that beginning work of faith good fruits of true repentance will come.
The message of individual responsibility for sin, and the ongoing duty of repentance for all was not received with joy by Israel. The people did not want to hear the truth that the soul who sins shall die. It is no wonder that such a message would be discouraging, since all have in fact sinned. There is great encouragement given for the righteous to pursue a life of repentance, and great encouragement for the one who had attained righteousness to continue in this way.
God is not rooting for any man in Israel to die. God loves righteousness. He hates sin, but He is very happy to see people turn from sin to pursue what is good. The big problem for God’s people is that they have sinned. Under the way of life presented in this chapter, they all deserved to die. Where is the righteous man who does not sin? Even though God desires obedience from His children, we all have sinned, and have fallen short of the glory of God.
Our fathers cannot take away the stain of our sin, for they have their own sin problem to deal with. The sun does not set on a day where any man alive is free from sin. There is simply no one who can carry the debt of sin for his child or grandchild. Each man has his own sin to deal with, and each man is guilty. “The soul that sins shall die.” All of Israel deserved to die.
God’s people were ready to blame God for their problems. They considered His ways unfair. The fault was clearly with them. They were the sinners. Though He would have been perfectly just to condemn them all, He came Himself in the person of His Son to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. We could not take anyone’s sin away because we had our own sin to deal with. Christ came into this world without sin and he never sinned. He alone could bear the sin of many. What our fathers and grandfathers could never have accomplished for us, Christ has perfectly achieved. He is the Sin-Bearer. For those who believe, we can now say that the soul that has sinned shall not die, for Christ has swallowed up the curse of the Law for us, and now we are assured that we shall live.
As He lives, so shall we also live. Now the soul that sins, if he yet turns in faith and repentance to Christ, shall live. Not only that, God is just to forgive us our sins, for Christ has freely taken upon Himself the punishment that we deserve. Even though our bodies may die, we know that we shall live.
By the grace that the Lord supplies, and with the great encouragement of the good news, we repent of our sin, and turn away from all our transgressions. He has granted to us a new life in His Son. The Lord has no pleasure in the death of anyone. He has secured eternal life for us in the substitutionary death of His Son, with whom He was well-pleased.
We know that there is such a thing as sinful complaining. We think of the murmuring of the Israelites in the wilderness during the days of Moses. Many deaths came from the faithless attitude of those who should have trusted in God. Nonetheless, not all complaining is sinful. Every day we are called to cast our cares upon the Lord. In the Bible this often takes the form of what is called a “lament.” This is usually spoken directly to God. (There is such difference between complaining about God, and singing a lament to God. Ezekiel 19 is a lament, and it is about the princes of Israel, those descendants of David who should have been leading the nation in godliness.
The mother of these kings mentioned in the lament is the city of Jerusalem or perhaps the covenant community more broadly. She has young cubs that would one day be lions. The first of these mentioned is said to have devoured men as his prey. This refers to the treatment of his subjects with brutality and oppression. The king is to rule for the good of those in his charge, but this prince does not do this. As we see in so many places in the Bible, God uses the nations to execute His judgment against His own people. This first king is taken off to Egypt.
To be sent back to Egypt for punishment is never a desired thing. Our Lord went to Egypt after His birth for protection, but as with the Israelite nation at the time of the Exodus, God said, “Out of Egypt I called my Son.” Egypt is not our desired place of safety, but a place that we need to flee from. God calls us out of there to serve Him and to move us toward the Promised Land. He has called us out of the bondage of sin. We do not want to return to the place of evil from which we have been delivered.
A second king is mentioned who is also called a cub of this same mother. This king also abused and even murdered men. He is said to have seized the widows of the men that He has murdered. He caused so much trouble in the land that the people were appalled by his behavior. He was attacked, not by Egypt, but by the king of Babylon, and to Babylon he went. The reason given was that his voice would not be heard any more on the mountains of Israel. That does not sound like the reason that the king of Babylon would have given. It does sound like the reasoning of the Protector of the land and the people. God is the one who causes kings to rise and fall. This is true of all rulers. It is no less true of the ruler over God’s own nation.
It is amazing to think of God sending these “cubs,” these descendants of Josiah, out of the land. This is such a horrible fall from the days of David and Solomon. The Lord had given so many blessings to Israel and Judah, and had blessed Jerusalem, and the king who reigned there. Now two men in the line of David are taken far away. They oppressed people and led in the way of disobedience and immorality. God has taken action against His vine. In His righteous indignation He has plucked it up and then thrown it down to the ground. There is a wind from the east, from the direction of Babylon. That wind has destroyed the Lord’s plant according to His own decree. His vine is consumed by fire at the very stem.
There appears to be nothing useful left from that plant. The stem of the vine should have been a strong scepter for ruling. Now it is gone. The fire has moved up from the stem and devoured any fruit that there may have been. These wicked descendants of Josiah have destroyed the people that they should have served. It will be six hundred years before the Son of David will once again ride into Jerusalem on a beast of burden to declare that He is the expected King.
Six hundred years is a long time to have to wait for the Promise of God. Until that time there will be much suffering and trouble for those who are the Lord’s people. This is a cause for a godly complaint, a lamentation before the Lord, a lamentation to be spoken or sung for many years.
There would never again be an earthly ruler sitting on the throne of Israel as the great Davidic king, at least not in the way that people expected. Yet one day a child would be born in the city of David, and his birth would be the cause of angelic rejoicing. Angel messengers would announce the greatest peace on earth, a peace that would come through Christ the Lord.
How would He bring peace? How would He exercise His royal authority? Through His own death on the cross He would make peace between God and His people. He would lead His disciples forward in the struggle of suffering, calling all men everywhere to give up their fight against God and to submit to Him. There is no better place to be than in His eternal land. Once admitted to that place we will never be thrust out to some Egypt or Babylon. We will rejoice in the Lord forever because of the coming of this great King. We bow before Him now, and take up our spots as princes in the land, for we are sons of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He will lead us forever in perfect godliness. Freed from sin, we are pleased to serve our great King and Redeemer now and always.
Many people claim to want to hear from God. Some even come to the ones who are authorized representatives of the Word of God just for this purpose. In the days of the Old Testament, some of those authorized representatives were actually true prophets. They had received a call directly from God and were particularly equipped by Him to speak to a given people. Here certain of the elders who are Israelites in Babylon, come to Ezekiel indicating a desire to hear from the Lord. This event happened five years before the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.
Just because men claim to want to hear from God does not mean that God will speak to them. The Lord knows the hearts of men, and He has determined that He will not be inquired of by these elders. God does have something to say to them, and He does so in the remainder of this chapter, but He will not condescend to answer their questions. He will instead review some of the facts of their history, and then tell them something remarkable that will be fulfilled in the distant future. This may all seem irrelevant to them if they are just looking for some divine way out of exile in their lifetime. If that is their only interest, I am not sure that they will find anything satisfying in the message that Ezekiel delivers here.
God begins His historical thoughts from the point of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. God announced Himself to them as the Lord their God. He promised to bring them out of the land of bondage, and to bring them into a wonderful place that would be their land. God called them to get rid of all the idols of Egypt that they were clinging to. This is not that different from our situation as New Covenant followers of Christ. God has met us in our place of bondage to sin. He has delivered us from that place and brought us into a new life by His Spirit. He asks us to turn away from all idolatry and to worship Him, for He is the God who has delivered us from sin through Jesus Christ.
God recounts the response of His people of Old to this demand. They did not give up their Egyptian gods. When they were out of the sight of Moses for a very short time, even Aaron was led astray in making a golden calf for them to worship. The Lord was ready to destroy them, but for the sake of His Name, He was true to His promises and to His great acts of deliverance performed before the sight of all people.
This pattern was quickly repeated during their time in the wilderness. The Lord increased His wonderful revelation to His people, granting to them a system of life through His Law. He reminded them in particular about His good gift of Sabbath to them, a day of rest for their sanctification. They would not keep His laws and they still were devoted to their idols. Once again, He would have destroyed them, but He spared them, and led their children into the Promised Land. As might have been predicted, it would not take long for the depravity of Israel to be seen one more time. Once again the Lord spared them out of concern for His own Name, but it was not as if there were no consequences. The Law became a testimony to them of their own sin, not a good way of life for them, for they continued in their idolatry and rebellion. When they came into the land they were experts at setting up shrines of false worship in high places everywhere. These were provocations against the Lord. Do His people really think that God will not care when we repeatedly do the things that He commands us not to do?
The conclusion of this brief review of their rebellious history is now taken up to the present moment as the elders have come before Ezekiel to inquire of God. The Lord will not be inquired of by them. He will never agree to be another god alongside their various idols. If they intend to continue in their heritage of idolatry, offering their gifts to the gods of the nations, and even sacrificing their own children in the fire, God will certainly not fit into their plans. They might like to have gods of wood and stone like so many of their neighbors, but the Lord will never agree to that. He will show Himself to be their God even if it is by pouring out His wrath upon them.
Now it is time for a distant future event to be announced, though they may have little interest in or understanding of the message that will come through this great prophet. Do we simply want comfort and a return to our old life as these false elders of Israel? Do we instead long for and love the appearing of Jesus Christ? If so, here is the message. God calls for a suffering future like the days of suffering in the wilderness. There will be a restoration and beyond that an entire New Covenant era, but it will not be an easy thing. The church will be born and will grow within the context of much struggle. God will purge out the rebels from among us. This will not be an easy thing. A day is coming when it will not be so much a matter of whether His people serve Him on one mountain or another mountain. A day is coming when the Lord will raise up true worshipers who worship Him in Christ, the rock of our salvation. Using the language of Old Testament worship and experience, the prophet speaks in a hidden way about the gathering of the Lord’s people from many places in an era of hope, yet also an era of pain.
Before that day, there will be more trouble from Babylon. That too is mentioned here. There is no quick fix. There is no easy message of everything being alright. That kind of word is left for false prophets to deliver. There is a true Word of the Lord acting in ways most consistent with the glory of His great Name. A wind will head south from Babylon and will bring more destruction upon Jerusalem in just a few short years, but the Lord will raise up a new people one day to worship Him. For now, they cannot seem to get the point at all, though most of what Ezekiel has said is very plain. May we not be similarly resistant to the Lord’s call to us today to be followers of Christ. That good demand is still given today to those who would take the Name of the Messiah upon themselves. May we be those who love His good gifts to us, seeking to embrace the grace that is ours in Christ, and desiring to follow the commandments of our Savior. May we enjoy something of our Sabbath rest in Him even now, growing in faithfulness day by day through the work of His sanctifying Spirit.
The sword of the Lord is powerful. If God turns His sword against the enemies of the Israelites those foes will be utterly defeated. If God uses another nation as the Lord’s sword against His own people, the disaster will be upon Jerusalem. God announces through His prophet that He is determined to bring destruction upon His own people. The shock of that should always be appalling to us, no matter how often we hear about it. We know that God has made irrevocable promises to His elect. We expect the sword of the Lord to come against the enemies of God, as in the days of Gideon when God brought about a great victory over the Midianites though the Israelites were deliberately outnumbered. That was a great use of the Lord’s sword. What we cannot bear is the though of the wrath of God coming upon us. We cannot face that sword and live.
When David sinned against the Lord in the numbering of the people, he was given three choices for the consequences he and the nation would face. Did he prefer three years of famine, three months of facing the sword of His enemies, or three days of pestilence from the sword of the Lord? He chose three days of the Lord’s discipline, since He reasoned that it was safer to fall into the hand of the Lord, because of the Lord’s great mercy.
God was merciful to Israel on that occasion, though many people died. Jerusalem was spared, and the site of the temple was identified as the place of God’s atoning love. It was there that the plague was stopped. Now in the days of Ezekiel, God is announcing to these early exiles in Babylon that His sword will not be immediately against Babylon. Babylon will be the sword of the Lord against Israel, and this time the city of Jerusalem will not be spared.
What should our attitude be when God destroys Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel? Closer to our own situation, how should we feel when judgment begins with the household of God, and the church faces the Lord’s discipline? Ezekiel is told to groan along with every heart and spirit within that city. The judgment of God is coming against His own people. Ezekiel is told to cry out and wail, but also to prophesy with boldness and to display the drama of the sword coming down with fury to signify the coming slaughter. This is not merely a time of testing. This is the end of an era. God will come in great judgment. The prophet should speak and act with vigor as the Lord’s representative, for God has spoken.
The Babylonians will come. We see them on the move in the words of the Lord through His prophet. They come to a crossroads with an intention to conquer. The king must decide which way to go. Will he go to Rabbah of the Ammonites on the road that moves south and more to the east or will he go to Jerusalem on the road that moves south and more to the west? How can he decide? He consults the gods through various rituals designed to reveal the divine will. The answer comes to him. He will go to Jerusalem. He will go there to destroy a city and to conquer a people using all the mechanisms of warfare at his disposal.
What does this prophesy mean to the leaders of God’s people? Will they hear and be afraid? To them it may all seem like false divination, but there is a sovereign Lord behind ever detail, and He brings about the result that He desires. Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the ruler who would seek to stop the King of Babylon will be taken from his position of authority. His day has come. There will be no Davidic king again until the One comes to whom God has planned to give the scepter of rule for centuries upon centuries.
What about the other fork in the road that was not immediately chosen? God has a plan for the Ammonites as well. The sword will come upon them. This will be an expression of His judgment upon that land. Ezekiel will return to that theme in future chapters. The sword of the Lord is coming against Jerusalem, but it will not be only against Jerusalem, but against many nations. All men everywhere deserve to face the sword of the Lord. As Paul tells us in Romans 2:12, “All who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” But he also says that “all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law.”
God is right to unsheathe his sword and to slay the wicked. All certainly have sinned, both in Jerusalem and in Rabbah. All deserve to die by the sword of His eternal justice. Where is our hope? That sword has come down upon His beloved Son Jesus Christ for us. His sword came down upon the innocent man who served as our propitiatory sacrifice. This is the only hope for us. We needed an innocent man to face that sword. This is what Christ has done.
The sword that is most frightening is not the destruction of any one city or nation in the current age. There is a much more dangerous and far-reaching sword that is coming against all men, not merely to take away our lives as we know them now, but to consign us to the place of the second death in the age to come. If that sword comes against us we will never have any relief from the piercing truth of our sinful rebellion against God. We need to be struck by the gracious sword of the Spirit now, the Word of God, so that we can truly embrace the only answer for us in Jesus Christ. He is the One who faced the eternal sword for us through His death on the cross. In Him we have an abundant answer that assures us of our blessed participation in the age to come.
It is a great challenge for a prophet to speak in judgment against His own people. There is always the danger that He will be found to be a hypocrite with a log in His own eye, who is flailing about trying to remove the splinter from his neighbor. Despite this danger, there are times when God causes a man to speak for Him. When He speaks in judgment, He must speak with the voice of God, who has no sin at all. The Lord has raised up Ezekiel, not only to speak of the great things to come from God’s grace, but also to tell the truth of the case that God has against His covenant people according to His Law. They have shed innocent blood, and they have defiled the land with their gross idolatry. They have become fit objects of the Lord’s wrath and they will be publicly exposed by the Lord in the sight of the nations all around them.
The sin of Israel, including her leading men, needed to be frankly exposed. There is much that can be said, and Ezekiel simply lists their many provocations against the Almighty. They have hated parents and ignored the poor man who was far from home. They have turned away from duties of worship, and lied in order to have the privilege of killing. They have gone up to the places of false worship, and once they reached their destinations, they insisted on adding sexual immorality to their practices of pagan worship. They have violated every standard of decency in order to satisfy their base lusts. They have been greedy for money at the expense of the weak, but above all of their sins, they have forgotten their Lord and their God.
Will men be so brash in God’s own land as to act as if God does not know or is powerless to address iniquity? Will we in the church use the name of Christ, and then commit all kinds of abominations with no fear that He will sweep us away? This is faithlessness, no matter what our claims to belief may be. In the case of Israel, God announces again through Ezekiel that He will judge His people. They have forgotten Him. Are they courageous enough to stand against Him now? He will scatter them far away. They have been proud in their sinning, but do they have the courage to stand against Him when He comes to judge?
God will cleanse His people with judgment, as a metalworker removes impurities in gold or silver with fire. The fire of His discipline will come against His city. Will there be anything there but dross? Is there any gold or silver left there at all? It seems that there will be some remnant, but they will only be discovered through removing all that is not gold. The stubble will be consumed. In the same way, a Day of Judgment will finally come upon the church when the Lord returns. The results of each minister’s work will be seen, as that which can be burned will be consumed in the Lord’s wrath, but the gold, silver, and precious stones will be purified.
The judgment against Jerusalem reflects a massive failure of her prophets, priests, and kings. So many prophets have not spoken the truth from God. They have filled themselves with the property of others and have murdered many people. The priests have not maintained the ceremonial law with integrity, and they have not received the Sabbath as a delight. The kings have not been shepherds who tenderly care for the people. They were wolves who steal, kill, and destroy.
This is not just a problem with the leaders. The people have used force to steal from the weak. As the Lord looked among them to find one man who could stand in the gap for the people he found none. Was there one righteous man who could intercede for the many in some way that would be favorable to the Lord’s ears? No one was found. Therefore they will receive the punishment that they deserve upon their own heads.
This is a very sad fact of life for the covenant people of God. If it were the final message of the Bible, we would be right to wonder what the whole point of this really was. We have known about the sin of man since the fall. Adam transgressed the covenant, and he was our accurate representative. We have known for centuries that we all deserved death. If there really would be no answer to our sin beyond divine judgment, what point would there be in the centuries of waiting? Why the nation of Israel at all? Why did God set up the system of festivals and sacrificial offerings? Why all the prophets, priests, and kings? What about the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Why the redemption from slavery through Moses? Why David and the Psalms? Why Solomon and the rest of the wisdom literature?
The truth is that this could not be the end of the story. It simply amplifies our desperate condition. Among those born of Adam, there is not one man who can stand in the breach for humanity. But by the righteousness and grace of God a second Adam has been found. He is a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah. He is the prefect prophet, priest, and king. He is the expected Immanuel – God with us. He came as the Son of God and the Son of Man. He took the fire of God’s wrath upon Himself upon the cross, and our dross has been consumed in Him. He has come out of the awful ordeal as the pure gold that He is, for there was never any sin in Him. The sin that was on Him was our sin, and He has consumed it in His death. Because He faced the judgment of God for us, our debts have been forgiven. Now we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Though Jesus has certainly saved us to the uttermost, we must remember that He is coming again to judge the living and the dead. He will be utterly faithful to His people, but He will separate the righteous from the wicked, and He will not be mocked. He will have the courage to speak the truth. It is best that we all follow Him with sincerity day by day, by the grace that He supplies. He can be trusted to save us. He can also be trusted to lead us through life into glory. The one man of righteousness who can stand in the gap for His people has been found, and we must follow Him.
God calls us His holy bride. We know the promise of God concerning His church. We will be without spot or blemish or any such thing, the perfectly radiant bride of our great God and King. Despite this glorious future, the Lord is very aware of our heritage of ugly depravity. When He speaks about His Old Covenant people and even about His church in this age, we hear the Lord’s honest assessment of our sinful patterns. Both of these true messages stand side by side in the Scriptures. We are to be the perfected bride of Christ, and we have been the depraved prostitute who repeatedly rebelled against the Lord. Only God can bring us from our old filthy condition to our final glorious hope.
Ezekiel 23 is one of the most memorable parables in the Scriptures, forcing us to face up to the sin of God’s beloved people. They are presented as two whorish sisters named Oholah which stands for Samaria or the northern kingdom of Israel, and Oholibah which stands for Jerusalem or the southern kingdom of Judah. Long before they were divided into southern and northern peoples, even before they were delivered out of bondage in the days of Moses, they were unfaithful to God in their youth during their time of captivity in Egypt. The names of the sisters given in this chapter are both based on the word for tent. Our bodies are called “tents” in the Scriptures. Israel and Judah have defiled their tents with their idolatry and immorality.
The northern kingdom was the first of the two sisters to fall. She lusted after Assyrian idols, and God gave her over to the Assyrians. The men she so desired ended up destroying both her and her children. The other sister, Judah, was not far behind Israel, and she soon surpassed her in lewdness. She too wanted the Assyrians and suffered their abuse, but she then became impressed with the Babylonians, and they also defiled her. God turned in disgust from Judah. If Judah had returned to God at some point and truly cried out to Him for help, surely He could have pushed away these foreign enemies. Instead they came against her from every side. They judged God’s nation, but in that judgment, it was God Himself who was actually directing His jealousy against His own people. Foreign armies disfigured the faces of survivors of Judah, and seized the descendants of God’s people and killed them. Judah followed in the way of her northern sister Israel, and she was forced to drink her sister’s awful cup. What was in that cup? It contained drunkenness, sorrow, horror, and desolation. At root, the problem for both sisters came down to this: They had forgotten God. They had cast Him behind their back like a religious statue that no longer brought them any luck. Therefore they needed to bear the consequences for their spiritual adultery.
They violated the Lord’s commandments and turned to false gods, though they claimed to follow the Lord. They sacrificed their children to idols and then came into the Lord’s sanctuary on the same day. They made themselves attractive for their horrible works of seduction and lewdness. The day had to come when they would be declared to be what they obviously were. They were adulteresses and murderers, and they had brought much trouble upon themselves and others.
What would the Lord do to His beloved bride? As He had warned them for centuries, He would bring a vast host against them, and they would be destroyed. They would feel the weight of stones upon their flesh, and the cut of sharp steel upon their bodies. They were willing to give up their children to their lust for idols, and now their young ones would be killed in judgment and their houses burned with fire. In this way the Lord would put an end to their wicked behavior. By this horrible sentence, an example would forever be set for us to warn us to flee from idolatry and immorality. By this frightening discipline, many people would see that the Lord is a righteous and holy God.
The fact of God’s judgment in this life and the next is somewhat more complex than we might first imagine. There is discipline that we experience here on earth, and there is an eternal judgment that will come at the return of the Messiah. During our lives now, there is a covenant community, and we are to be a part of it. That covenant community is stained with serious sin, yet the Lord is always bringing people to repentance. Many are exercising faith day by day, and despite our defiling sin, we experience real forgiveness and are kept by God through the righteousness of our Redeemer.
Nonetheless, not everyone in that covenant community will have eternal safety. God will separate those who are recipients of His mercy from those who will only know His justice. All seemed to profess faith, but not all have genuine faith. All were also guilty of enough sin to justly condemn them forever, but some are credited with the perfect righteousness of Christ. How will the Lord make the distinction between the holy and the profane? Israel and Judah in the Old Testament age, and the Lord’s church in the current age, may face His discipline and even death now, yet could it be that may of those same souls that face temporal judgment today will be saved for eternity? Others may live peaceful, long, and happy lives, but will some of these be turned away as evildoers on the Day of Judgment, never really having the true gift of saving faith?
If we had all the specific and personal answers to these questions than we could do what only the Lord and His angels will be able to do when Jesus returns: perfectly separate the wheat from the chaff. For now, it must be enough for us to know that today is still the right day for God’s people to turn away from our base spiritual adulteries and all our immoral thoughts and actions that defile God’s people. May the Lord fill us with His Spirit, grant to us repentance day by day, and keep us for the life to come, where His bride will be perfectly pure and eternally blessed through the blood of our righteous husband, Jesus Christ.
Do we think that our faith is a sure way to bring to us the good life of this world during our days in this age? This certainly was not the way for the Lord’s prophets during the Old Testament. Perhaps the misery of men like Jeremiah and Ezekiel are for the old time of the Law? The lives of the Lord and His New Testament apostles seem to follow the same pattern of suffering leading to glory. Paul writes to the young minister Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12 that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Christ Himself tells us that the way of the cross is not optional for us.
The prophets were given great visions of things to come in a future age of glory, but they also announced the destruction of God’s holy city as Ezekiel does again in Chapter 24. The siege of Jerusalem would take place even as this message was given. The coming of Christ and the day of resurrection blessings were still many years away. Not only do prophets carry the burden of announcing God’s just anger with His people, they also live through the miseries of this life as participants in a fallen world under the curse of God. There is something of a compatibility between these two things. They both have to do with the holiness of God and the pains of the present age. They both cause mourning that could make a normal person despair of life. There is some right but sad connection in this chapter between the fall of Jerusalem, the city of the Lord’s delight, and the death of Ezekiel’s wife, the delight of the prophet’s eyes.
The day that this prophecy was given to the Jews in Babylon, the final siege against Jerusalem had just begun far away in the city that they loved. The hope of many was that this day would not come. False prophets had spoken of relief that never materialized. True prophets had hoped against hope for real repentance and some change in the plain intention of the Lord. Now the Babylonian troops had begun their horrible work of destruction.
The picture that displays the city of Jerusalem under the siege is a pot full of meat and bones set upon a strong fire. The pot is rusty. The pieces of meat and bones come out randomly and are placed on the ground for all to see, like the body parts of the slaughtered in Jerusalem. Even after all the meat has been removed from the water, the fire is kept very hot for the destruction of the corruption in the pot. Despite these efforts at purification, nothing can remove the filth from the pot, and nothing can cleanse the city of Jerusalem. The pot must be destroyed in the fire, and the city must be completely overcome because of her lewdness and her unwillingness to be cleansed from all that is unclean in her. This is the judgment of God against the holy city. To be left in Babylon and to hear of the beginning of this siege, to anticipate the coming destruction of the place of your hope would have been a brutal trial for anyone to face.
Ezekiel has a matching trial of a personal nature when he is informed by God of the impending death us wife. This is one of the most difficult things that a person can face. When two people are married they become one in some way. They are further knit together in the trials that they share over their years together. Ezekiel is far from completing the troubles ahead of him. Now his companion in life will be taken from Him. That evening she died.
The prophet was not allowed by God to engage in the normal acts of mourning. Somehow this was a sign to them of their own strange reaction to the events that would take place in the holy city. One would think that they would have mourned deeply, but they would not. Their souls would be eaten away by their own iniquities and they would groan to one another. Why would this be? Would they not care about Jerusalem? That is hard to imagine. More likely, they would feel as if they had nothing left within them, far away from their home, trying to make their way in a land of captivity. When deep grief finds no echo in a vital hope, all energy for life seems to be gone, and even sadness finds very little voice or motion. Only a groan reminds us that we are still alive. Soon enough the report confirming the destruction of the city would come, and after so long, Ezekiel would again find a voice, and those who heard him would know that the Lord had done great and awful things.
What must it have been like so many years later when Jerusalem was in an uproar with the thought that the Messiah King had come who might deliver them from their enemies, and save their nation? Instead He met His end upon a Roman cross with a title above it indicating that this one was the King of the Jews. What a mockery it must have seemed like! The voices of the leaders and the crowds had insisted upon His death. What a misery we see there as He entrusts His mother to the beloved disciple John! What a groan there is when He breathes His last, and His body is placed in a borrowed grave! What a hopeless moment, and what a perfect monument to our fallen condition!
But this was not the final message of the cross. After three days there was an empty tomb. There were resurrection appearances. The minds of disciples were being filled with the truth of Christ in the Word of the Scriptures. Soon their hearts would be empowered by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and they would be witnesses for Him to the ends of the earth.
Beloved wives still die, and brothers and sisters in the faith are persecuted and even killed by brutal men. The world is still the world. But our hope in the Jerusalem above is sure and secure because of the death and resurrection of the last King of Judah. God has given us a hope that cannot be extinguished by the misery of the fall. From the ashes of the curse one can begin to hear the sound of a whispered Hallelujah, which will surely ring loudly throughout heaven and earth one day.
How is it that the God of one nation ever had anything to say against any other nation? Nations that were on the rise might assert that their gods were more powerful than the gods of other lands, and that this gave them a military advantage over their enemies. Sometimes the human rulers of powerful empires took titles of divinity upon themselves and then asserted their authority over the gods of those lands that they would conquer. All of this proud behavior requires that a nation be on the rise. During the time of Ezekiel the northern tribes of Israel had already been decimated. The southern kingdom of Judah was certainly far from her glory days. How then did the God of Israel have something to say to the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Philistines, and any other neighboring nations?
The answer has to do, not with greatness of Judah or her kings. They were about to see Jerusalem destroyed and the temple on Mount Zion left in a heap of rubble. What allowed the Lord God to speak to these other nations was the fact that He is the God of everything and everyone, and not just the God of Israel? In fact He is the only real God. He created the heavens and the earth. There are no boundaries for his authoritative Word. If He has something to say to the nations of the world, He requires no one’s permission to do so. This is part of His glory and majesty.
The Ammonites lived to the east of Israel. The Lord’s case against them is based on their celebration at the time of Judah’s trouble. They rejoiced at the profaning of the temple of God in Jerusalem and in the exile of the Lord’s people. For this reason they would have a punishment that would fit their offense. They would be turned over to the same empire to their east and would suffer the kind of trouble that they had seen Judah face. They rejoiced in her trouble, but now they would feel the very same problem coming upon them. This judgment would be a revelation of God. Through His just response to their offense, they would know something about Him as He came in wrath.
Moab would also receive a word from Israel’s God through His prophet Ezekiel. Their offense was their claim that Judah was just like the other nations. People could have looked at the events that had taken place and come to the conclusion that there was really nothing special about Israel or about the God of Jacob. Many nations had fallen to the hands of the Assyrians and yet Jerusalem had escaped this fate. But now she was falling to the Babylonians, who had themselves replaced the Assyrians. Perhaps they had thought that there might be something special about Judah, but now they concluded that she was just like all the other nations. In fact, Judah’s trouble had nothing to do with her relative strength or weakness when compared with other nations. Her trouble had to do with her God. Now this same God announces His judgments upon Moab.
The message to Edom and Philistia is similar. They have taken vengeance on Israel, as if they had the power of God in their hands. It is one thing for God to discipline Israel through the use of the Babylonians. It is quite another for their neighbors to presume to come against the Lord’s people in judgment. The Lord will judge His people in His own way. Their neighbors would want to wipe them off the face of the earth. God may chastise them severely, but He will never change the fact that the coming Messiah will be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David. God will defend His Name, and He will fight for His people.
When the world sees the church in disarray or trouble, she should not assume that the Lord of the church has utterly rejected His people. She should not celebrate when she observes that we are being disciplined by the Lord our God. Judgment does begin with the household of God, but it will not end there. The Lord who gave His life for us will never abandon us. He disciplines those He loves.
Many people assume that You can judge the favor of God for a church or for an individual based on how things seem to go for them. Such a standard cannot be used to make sense of what happened to Christ or how the Apostles were persecuted by their enemies. Did God not love His Son when Jesus went to the cross? We read in John 10:17; “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.” Did God not love the apostles when they were put to death by their persecutors? According to Psalm 116:15 “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” You cannot rightly conclude that the church is hated by God because she is facing trials in this life.
God will never forsake His church. They are the new Israel of God, and the recipient of the Lord’s covenant promises. His Son died for their sins, and is coming again for their salvation. There is no safety in Ammon, Moab, Edom, or Philistia. But there is safety in Jesus Christ. It is never wise to ridicule or attack the Lord’s elect. God has made them precious promises in Christ that will never be taken away. The best thing for anyone in the world to do is to find a place in the body of Christ. Those who are children of God through faith in Christ are told in Romans 8:17 that we are now “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
It may be a good general principle in this age of trouble that we should never rejoice over the misfortune of some group of people, no matter how beneficial or satisfying their demise might seem to our own interests. God is the God of blessings and of trouble. For us to pile on top of an enemy when he is already down is uncharitable. We should recognize instead that we certainly deserve the treatment that the other nation received. In fact, we deserve something much worse than they have received. We know that all of us deserve both death and hell. We should also remember that we all appreciate a friend when we have brought low, and we do not know how we ourselves will fare in the future. It is possible that we may face a similar day of difficulty. In any case, the trouble of one nation, is not a signal for other nations to act as vultures who will now feed off of the misfortunes of a defeated people.
Beyond this general rule that this age may not be the best time to rejoice in the pinch of the fall upon others, we should say something more. When the party being disciplined is actually one of the favorites of God, it may be especially unwise to rejoice in their discipline. God may not have utterly rejected them, and their enemies will not want to do anything that would cause Israel’s God to be angry.
As the Lord had something to say to Israel’s neighbors to the east and the south, He has a word through Ezekiel for their trading partner to the north. The people of Tyre saw the trouble that Israel was facing from Babylon through the lens of opportunity. The gate of Jerusalem was broken. The Phoenicians greeted this as good news and considered the potential economic benefit that they would yield from this news. Because of this disregard for the plight of the people of God, the Lord announces that He is against Tyre. This chapter and the next two make this point, giving us a substantial consideration of the trouble that is coming upon the land of the Phoenicians. As we have seen in other cases, Tyre will face an appropriate penalty for her offense. It shall happen to her as it has happened to Jerusalem. She rejoiced in their destruction. Now she will be destroyed.
When we say that Tyre will be destroyed, it does appear that what will come upon her will be more significant even than what Jerusalem has faced. While they too will face the king of Babylon, his armies, his siege mounds, and all his instruments of war, it appears that he will make a bare rock out of the pleasant island nation. They had a good life in this land of merchants. They had riches, wonderful homes, festivals with singing and the playing of musical instruments. Now they will be so completely ravaged that it would seem like there was nothing left at all. They wanted to clean up after the Babylonians who had destroyed so much in Jerusalem. Now they will find that everything will be taken from them, and there will be nothing left for a greedy nation of scavengers to take. Even more than this, there is some indication in Ezekiel’s message that Tyre would never be rebuilt.
The fall of Tyre will cause many to marvel. All her trading partners knew what a great city she was. There is something awful about seeing people who live like kings being stripped of their robes. There is also something in us that likes to see the proud fall, but I am not sure that this is a righteous impulse. If an unpopular ruler were removed by his people, and there were no restraints on their behavior, who can tell how ugly his former subjects might become in their denigration of him. Other rulers tremble at this kind of news. They know that they may not survive very long.
The words of this prophecy seem to go beyond even these horrors. It is as if God will drown this city that once seemed to command the seas. It will now be brought down to the bottom of the ocean. Her end will be dreadful, and she shall be no more.
We imagine that our impulse to gain riches at the expense of others is very innocent. We think that what we do is just business. We are happy to see others fall, and we begin to imagine ways in which we can profit from their misfortune. We see from the Lord’s judgment on Tyre that he takes these things very seriously, particularly if we intend to make ourselves rich at the expense of His covenant community – even more if we would use the occasion of the Lord’s discipline of His people as an opportunity for our own economic gain.
What do we see when we see the misfortune of the Lord’s people? The Lord Jesus Christ looked upon us in our need, and He gave Himself in love. He came with His riches of righteousness, wisdom, and power, and saw us in our condition of extreme poverty. In the greatest display of love known to man, He gave Himself for us. He was willing to be poor that we might be rich. He also tells us that this gospel way of treating others is one of the primary ways that we display His love in the world.
Christ loved the church with His life. He gave His time, His substance, His heart, His body, His blood, that we might be rescued. He does not taken advantage of us in our troubles. Instead He ordains only those troubles that are necessary for our eternal good. This is the Man who saved us. This is the heart of God for His people. This is Jesus, our Redeemer.
Tyre was a very special ancient city of the Phoenicians. An island fortress, it was a major participant in trade with many other nations. Many cities and nations are filled with civic or tribal pride. Tyre was no exception. She was proud of the way she had adorned herself with all of the goods of the world around her. She said of herself, “I am perfect in beauty.” These are not the words of someone who knows the One who is the Source of every blessing. These are the words of a nation who believes that she is herself like a god.
How did she get to this point of such a high self-estimate? She had builders who made her such a great city. Leading men from her past had made her a jewel of the seas. She was like the most beautiful sailing vessel, with choice wood, sails, and even rowing men from all the best places. It was as if these other lands existed in order to make Tyre great. They existed to bring her beauty and glory at the direction of her leading men.
Men who would have been elders back in the places of their own heritage were resources to be used for this wonderful ship. They should feel honored to work on such a vessel, even if they only made sure that there were no leaks on this boat. Men of power from other nations were easily attracted to the service of Tyre. They were either sold as slaves in her extensive trade, or hired themselves out as mercenaries, and rich Tyre was the highest bidder. These men added to the beauty of this ship. Their very presence told the story of the grandeur of this city.
How is it that such a small piece of land becomes so well endowed with minerals and men, animals and ornaments of beauty and grandeur? They trade with many places and they do it well. They become proud and beautiful. They clothe themselves in apparel that fits their own assessment of their worth. It would seem that nothing can stop them.
Tucked away in the midst of the names of their trading partners we find the names of the nations that are supposed to be the beautiful possession of the Lord God. Judah and Israel are apparently expected to join with all the other nations in being happy for the privilege of serving on this great vessel of Tyre. They can simply line up with some names that we recognize and many that we do not, and be happy to trade with Tyre. Here is a ship, a city, that is full. She is heavy laden with goods from all over, and she is filled with grandeur. She stands for all the cities of the world that have found a way to be the dog, requiring others to be the tail. She is heavy with more than commodities. She is loaded with pride.
This beautiful ship is headed out onto the high seas, but there is a God whose voice commands the wind and the waves, and He will judge Tyre. All her commodities, her wealth, and her skilled craftsmen will not be able to save her from the God of creation and providence. There are seas that are higher than the bravest men can take. The people watching her destruction from the shore will not be able to do anything to help her. All their tears cannot save this city. She is doomed.
As she lived, so she dies. She made her life by the sea, and the seas seem to take it all away. The tide of merchandise came into her city over the centuries, but the wave of God’s judgment through a conquering power will destroy her. She has come to a dreadful end, and she shall be no more.
Not everyone lives a life of comfort in this world. Some have all that they can do to scrape for their daily bread. Yet there are some that have economic advantages. They may have resources or military might. They may have intelligence and strategic insight. Often they have the inheritance of men from days gone by and the remaining legacy of earlier societies of some character. Better men have labored and their lesser descendants have received. Such individuals and societies have a special burden, for it is harder for rich men to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
All the wealth of men and nations has a purpose. God gives us resources to use for something more than ourselves. No amount of wealth can purchase for us a free pass out of the curse of sin and misery. Only through the precious blood of Jesus Christ can forgiveness come to us. The gift of His righteousness is credited to us through simple faith. A rich man must learn to loosen his grip on his possessions in order to embrace the Savior who alone can bring us through the storm of divine judgment. Consider the redemption that you have been given by God. It is a free gift from Him, and your greatest blessing. Be willing to use the riches of this world for the pleasure of Your Father. All the pride of men and all their wealth and power can be gone in a moment. The riches of eternity that we have in Christ are forever.
At the helm of a proud city that counts itself as “perfect in beauty,” is a proud captain, the King of Tyre. He is a man, but he says, “I am a god.” What is the evidence of his divinity? Marvel at his surroundings and be amazed. He is head of a fascinating and prosperous city state. He sits in the seat of the gods as the head over such a magnificent place. He surely must be a god himself, sitting in the heart of the seas. He reflects on his own wisdom, the commercial success of his people, and all of the wonderful things around him, and he forgets that he is just a man. He will soon learn that there are kings with even more pride than him, and God will use them against Tyre. The Lord will bring the most ruthless of nations as his enemies, and Tyre will be dragged down from her mountain of pride and cast into the pit of the Lord’s judgment in the midst of the seas.
What will such a man say when he faces another more powerful man coming against him and defeating his nation? Will he still claim to be a god? If so, then he is apparently a lesser god than his victorious adversary. He shall die by the hand of foreigners according to the decree of the Lord God. The God of Israel is the true God, and He speaks here against the pride of the King of Tyre. Words could easily be ignored by such a self-exalted man. The sword of an invading king by the hand of Almighty God is a force that would demand his consideration.
The tale of the King of Tyre is compared to the story of Adam’s fall. He was great in so many ways. Created by God, and set aside for a special purpose, blameless in all his ways. Then unrighteousness was suddenly found in him. God cast Him out of Eden, and his posterity became filled with all kinds of iniquity.
The description used here lends itself to an even bigger story. The fall of the King of Tyre is not only like the fall of the human race through the sin of Adam. It is like the fall of Satan from the heights of heaven. He was an anointed angel on the holy mountain of God. His heart was proud, and he corrupted his wisdom with the goal of exalting his great splendor. Not only was He cast down to the ground like the serpent of old, this fallen angel will face the destruction of fire.
Whether the reference point is Adam, or Satan, or the King of Tyre, the outlines of the story are the same. God has created one to be great. This great one became filled with pride. He has now been condemned and cast out. His end will be dreadful.
Closely related to Tyre was the Phoenician city of Sidon. On the mainland across the seas, Sidon benefited from her association with Tyre. Like Tyre, she treated the house of Israel with contempt. She was like a thorn bush that cut her neighbors. Though the northern kingdom was scattered by the Lord’s discipline through the Assyrians, and though Judah in the south will soon face more destruction from the Babylonians, God had not stopped caring about His people. His judgments against Tyre and Sidon were a way of expressing His continued commitment to His covenant people, despite His discipline against them.
There is no note here about any future for Tyre and Sidon, despite all their prosperity, power, and pride. In contrast to this, God speaks through Ezekiel about a future for Israel. God scattered His people, but He will gather them again from many nations. They will be brought back to the land and will dwell securely in it. This will happen when He executes judgments upon all their neighbors.
There are several layers of fulfillment of this final prophesy. First, there will be a number from the tribes of Israel who will be restored back to the land after several decades of the Babylonian exile. This was a great miracle and a wonderful gift from God. The picture of Old Testament Israel would continue until the coming of the Messiah. There would be no king on David’s throne during that time, but the temple would be rebuilt, along with the walls of Jerusalem, and the worship of God would be restored among the Lord’s people as they awaited his deliverance for several centuries.
A much grander fulfillment would come in the ascension of Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit for the proclamation of the good news of the death and resurrection of the long-awaited Messiah King. Now the people of Israel would be gathered, not only from among the tribes descended from Jacob, but from all over the earth. During this age in which we live, we are being brought to God’s land in heaven through the ministry of His church.
Nonetheless we are looking for a third level of fulfillment that will come with the return of the Lord and the fulfillment of all that the land of Israel ever meant. In that new life to come we will dwell in the fullness of peace, but only if we are in the Jewish Messiah King Jesus. There is no hope of this kind of ultimate glory in the King of Tyre. It is one thing to claim to be a god. It is quite another to come as the Son of God. Christ came not in pride, but in humility. In His death He showed the outlines of His plan for ultimate peace and security for His beloved people. We must not be fooled by the pomp of this world. It will swiftly perish when the Lord’s promises come in fullness. It is best to stay with Israel’s God, even when it may look like the world has more to offer.
Immediately following the fall of Jerusalem, the Lord had something for Ezekiel to say against Pharaoh and Egypt. Even though Egypt was a strong regional power in the days of the Old Testament, she had less interest in Israel then the Assyrian and later Babylonian and Persian powers to the east. Egypt already had her own coastland on the Mediterranean. For Syria and the empires to the east, to control Israel on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Seas meant access to the European world. Israel had geographic advantages that enabled her to defend herself against most of her closest neighbors, including Egypt. The best hope for Egypt to control Israel was to keep the Israelites within the border of Pharaoh’s land. Once Israel had escaped out of that nation at the time of the Exodus, the Egyptians would lose most of their desire to control Israel and their ability to rule over God’s people without their consent.
Israel’s bigger threats came from those eastern empires. Nonetheless Egypt was a problem for God’s people, because she represented a continual temptation. The temptation of Egypt for the Israelites was primarily this: that Egypt might be a savior for Israel in the face of the expansive Assyrians and Babylonians. Because of this hope, rulers and populace together regularly entreated the Egyptians for some kind of alliance that would supposedly bring some security to Israel, even though the Lord had prohibited such an arrangement. As it turned out, the Egyptians never were much of a help to the Israelites, just as the Lord had regularly warned His people would be the case. Here, and in the next several chapters, God speaks a word against this once-great nation through the prophet Ezekiel.
God announces here that He is against Pharaoh. As with the prophesy against the King of Tyre, Pharaoh is spoken against using imagery of Satan. He is a proud dragon who will be cast out, and will be food for the birds of the heavens. The reason that God gives for this treatment is that Egypt has been a useless support to Israel. Even though God prohibited His people from seeking their support, the fact that the Egyptians ended up being such a dangerous and useless staff for Israel to lean upon is reason enough for them to face the Lord’s discipline. Because of this, the Lord will bring a sword upon them, and will destroy their power.
Just as the King of Tyre saw himself as some kind of God over the seas, Pharaoh considered himself Lord of the Nile. Where the river flowed there was life. Yet God would make Egypt a land of desolation for forty years. Even when she was gathered back to her land, she would never again be the world-class power that she once was. No longer would she be a tempting source of help for the Israelites. In this disposition of a once-commanding empire, the Lord displayed His sovereign power over all lands. When people would one day see what had happened to Egypt, they would know the Lord’s divine power and justice.
Many years later Ezekiel again would announce a message from God concerning Egypt. This is one of the latest prophecies given in this book, and it tells us of one other purpose that God had for Egypt. When the Lord sent his judgments against the King of Tyre, the conquering agents that He used were the Babylonians under the command of Nebuchadnezzar. In this role they were serving in the employ of the Lord, and He had never paid them for their work. Tyre was so utterly destroyed that there was no compensation for the Babylonians as the agents of the Lord’s wrath. In order to settle this unusual debt, the Lord gives the Egyptians into the hands of the Babylonians. They may plunder the land of Egypt as wages to this army in working for God as the destroyers of Tyre.
One more note closes this chapter. The Lord will cause a horn of power to spring up for the house of Israel. As Ezekiel was unable to speak for some time earlier in his ministry but then was given a voice, some good thing will come for Israel, perhaps through a divinely appointed messenger like Ezekiel. This will be yet another sign that God’s purposes for Israel were not yet completed.
The Lord did raise up a horn among His people. During the days of the restoration there would be prophets that would call the nation to faithfulness, and the Lord would grant them some success, despite the continuing sin of His people. But especially in the coming of John the Baptist and in the Messiah that John announced, after several centuries of silence, the Lord raised up a horn of salvation in the house of His servant David.
There would be no Messiah who would come from the line of the great Pharaoh. There would be no Deliverer who would come from the descendants of the Egyptians. They would never again be as great a power as they had been in earlier years. In the days when the Romans would assert their proud authority over both Israel and Egypt, and even all the way to Spain and Britain, a new King would be born in the city of David, Christ the Lord. He would establish a very different kingdom, and would rule forever. We are the subjects of His wonderful rule and reign, and we wait with joyful expectation to greet Him face to face. All of His true subjects are happy to be known by Him. He is not a proud despot who lives for a time and then fades away. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He has shown His love for us by redeeming us at the cost of His own life. He has displayed His power not only be laying down His life, but then especially by picking it up again.
The Lord has spoken to His people through various prophets about something called the “Day of the Lord.” Here He speaks about that coming day with reference to the nation of Egypt. The Day of the Lord in its most ultimate sense is the day of Christ’s return. It will mark the end of the present age and the beginning of the new age of eternal life. When Ezekiel writes this prophetic book, He writes during the prior Old Testament age. With the first coming of the Messiah, and especially with His death, resurrection, and ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, a new age has come. The Old Testament era of the Law is over. The New Testament time of the gospel is here.
During the Old Testament time of the Law, the only way of life was through God’s nation Israel. If an Egyptian was somehow brought to seek under the heavens for the true God of creation, the very best thing that he could do would be to become a Jew, because this was God’s covenant community in that day. This is not at all the case in the current age. The very best thing that a true seeker among the Egyptians could do today would be to associate Himself with Jesus by becoming a part of the church that Christ has established. There is no point at all in an Egyptian becoming a Jew today.
This age is still not the final age. We are looking for that return of our Messiah King, who is the Head of His church. He has faced the Day of the Lord for us on the cross, and we look now for the fulfillment of all of the Lord’s promises of judgment and salvation at the return of Christ. We have so very much to say to Egyptians today. We do not say these things to them as Egyptians who need to stop being Egyptians, or to Egyptians who are doomed because they are Egyptians. We speak to them as people who can hear the gospel of our Lord, and who can be every bit as much of a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ as any Jew could be or any other person could be regardless of national heritage or current citizenship.
Knowing what we know now about the Day of the Lord, we would not have expected that God would say so long ago through Ezekiel that the Day was near. Nonetheless that Day intrudes into prior ages whenever God comes to judge. When the Lord came in the cool of the Day to Adam in the garden, he was coming with an intrusion of the Day of the Lord. When He came with waters in the time of Noah, it was a Day of the Lord. When He spoke to Israel and Judah about impending destruction through the Assyrians or Babylonians, He spoke about a Day of the Lord, and especially when Christ faced the wrath of God on the cross for sinners, it was an intrusion of the Day of the Lord.
What may seem surprising to us is that God spoke about Egypt during the Old Testament times using the same language and imagery of a Day of the Lord that He used with Israel and Judah. This is because the judgment of God through His returning Messiah is coming upon the entire earth. When Nebuchadnezzar comes with His forces against the Egyptians, we all need to know that this is an intrusion of the ultimate Day of Judgment, and we should be warned concerning that coming Day.
The Day for Egypt that Ezekiel announces would mean trouble for them and for all of their allies. It would mean desolation for cities and villages. It would mean destruction by fire and drought from God’s hand. Above all it would mean suffering, captivity, and death. It would mean that no allies could rescue them, and that none of their gods would be able to deliver them from His hand. It would mean that the strength of Pharaoh would be useless. He would be like a man with a shattered arm trying to fight against an adversary who had always been far too strong for him, like a man mortally wounded with no one to help him in a battle against the wrath of the Almighty.
Who could be ready for such a fight against God? In the context of the Old Testament age, there would seem to be no way out for the heathen nation of Egypt. There is still no way out for the world. Our association with the world as a place of hope must somehow be broken. The only way out for any Egyptian man, from Pharaoh down to the lowest slave, would be to forsake Egypt and to become an Israelite. That idea would have been laughable. It was the people in Judah that were always seeking the aid of the more powerful Egyptians. Though God was bringing something of a Day of the Lord upon His own people, this did not change the fact that the best place for any man was to be in God’s ark of His covenant community before the flood of God’s judgment came upon the world.
Even in our current age, any people or nation can feel the danger of the Lord’s judgment, for nations rise and fall at His command. He rules over all, and He calls all men everywhere to repent. The only sensible thing for anyone to do is to become a Christian, and to find a place under the protection of our Messiah, the King of the Jews. In Him an Egyptian who is brought into the Christian church becomes a part of the chosen people of God. Though that alternative may seem laughable in many nations today, when the Day of God’s judgment finally comes, no one will be laughing. Why should any man face the coming Day of the Lord without the safety that comes from God? Our safety can only come through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Day.
During the final weeks before the fall of Jerusalem, God spoke through Ezekiel concerning the mighty power of the Egyptian empire. For many generations the Egyptians were the great power to the south and west of Israel. During this time there was normally some other great empire to the north and east. That empire to the east had more of a natural incentive and opportunity to attack and subdue Israel. In Israel’s efforts to protect herself from the eastern adversary, there was a great temptation to turn to Egypt as the answer for their security. God did not like this. He insisted on being the great Father for Israel and Judah. The Egyptians who had enslaved them for over 400 years were not the answer for them. God had once delivered His people out of Egypt through the hand of Moses. Would they now turn away from Him and consider the great Egyptian Empire as a great helper, particularly when their real Father was disciplining them through the powers that He had established to the east?
God had a word to speak concerning the Egyptians. That southern empire no doubt agreed with the assessment of disobedient Israelites. They thought that they were great. God now explored that proposition. To whom shall He compare them? Why not compare them to a great empire from recent centuries, the former power from the east, the Assyrians? She also was once great like the Egyptians. Like a great cedar in Lebanon, she was beautiful and useful. Like the tower of Babel, this cedar reached into the heavens. She had all kinds of resources, and was greater than her other neighbors. The world all around her did well to be at peace with her. If others were willing for the Assyrians to be the undisputed tree in that region, then they could find their place resting under her branches. Her neighbors were promised the good life. This was just what the Assyrian envoys tried to convince the people of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah. This great empire seemed more extensive and wonderful than any tree, even in the great garden of God in Eden. It was God, Ezekiel tells us that made the Assyrians what they were.
There was a problem that developed in that empire. She became proud of her relative position. God’s answer to her pride was to give her into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. She had once ruled over the Babylonians, but now she would be ruled over by them, for they would be the new great power from the east. This great cedar of Assyria was felled by the Babylonians. Now she was brought down to the deep, and the creatures on the earth would make good use for the fallen limbs of this once-proud tree. She fell from the heights of the gods, and she took her place among the children of men, who are all subject to death. This is the humility of natural revelation. Look among the sons of men. No matter how strongly they may believe in their own superiority and even their own divinity, they all face death.
Assyria was a great empire. God made her what she was, and He even used her as part of His chastisement of Samaria and the northern tribes of Israel. She too would have to face up to her true nature. When that wonderfully tall and beautiful cedar of Assyria was brought low, there would rightly be mourning among some. Other great powers might look at Assyria and think about their own future. Not only do individuals go down to the world of the dead, even empires are spoken of as in Sheol. At a minimum, that consigns the nation and its leaders to a thing of the past. Somehow it is said to have its role to play in the world of the dead, as the fallen angels must eventually have their role to play in hell.
Who is Egypt like? She is like the great empire of the Assyrians. She too is great cedar, but like Assyria she can be cut down according to the Lord’s plans. Pharaoh and his leaders are great. They are impressive among men, but they are not gods. Their gods are not even gods. All the multitude of Egypt, all the men and demons that are led by such a great king as Pharaoh, will find their end in the world of the dead, together with all who shall have no portion in the eternal land of the living.
Pride is such an amazing deceiver. Like cancer cells that seem so much healthier and stronger than the other cells in the body, proud empires seem to flourish, but in their very growth and exaltation are the seeds of their demise. Any great nation can fall, and they can be rightly mourned among the sons of men. They have their day, but that day must come to an end.
There is only room for one kingdom in heaven. In the blessing of the age to come, the kingdom of Christ will alone be exalted. All other empires must go down to the pit. The eternal kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ finds its best expression today in the church throughout the world. Here we have something that actually will last.
Why will this one kingdom last? Surely it is not because of the merit of her subjects. Even to be in this kingdom we are called to profess that our merit could never grant to us such an exalted citizenship. Our position in the life to come is all about our King. This King is the true Son of God. He has rescued us from the pit of death and has granted to us a standing in the eternal city. We have been drawn to Him by an irresistible grace. We have been gathered into the one nation that will remain, and we have come to see our citizenship in that nation as more significant than what even the best of earthly powers could have granted to us. When we see the fall of some empire or people, we need not rejoice in their demise. We remind ourselves again of what we and our own people deserve. Nonetheless we will rejoice in God our Father, we will rejoice in Jesus our King, and we shall cling to our Lord as citizens of a kingdom that shall never end.
A powerful man’s assessment of himself in the day of his greatest glory may be very different from his evaluation of his life as he lies dying on the field of battle. This is something that all kinds of people face, both great and small, both inside the covenant community of God and outside its bounds. Yet it may be an especially jarring tale among the greatest of men who have not been softened in their pride by the experience of the true worship of a Being greater than themselves.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, was apparently such a man. He thought of himself as a lion among the nations. This title is more suited for the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes again in glory to judge the earth as the King of kings. The right assessment of Pharaoh is far less flattering. Rather than meriting a title that is fit for the Lord of Glory, God gives Pharaoh a title that reminds us of the Lord’s chief adversary. The ruler of Egypt is called a dragon in the seas, sending His pollution into rivers that become foul because of his presence.
This dragon will not be permitted to have sovereignty over the earth. Like the serpent of old, he can only play his strange part in the mysterious decree of God. The time for Pharaoh’s end will come. A net will be cast over him, and he will meet his demise. In part, this has already happened to Satan. He has been bound by God so that he cannot utterly deceive the nations any more. He once kept all the Gentiles in deep darkness during the time prior to the preaching of the good news. That day is now gone. One day in the future Christ will finally and fully put His net over His enemy, and that dragon will be cast into the lake of fire.
The description of what will happen to Pharaoh is spoken of with the language that of the ultimate Day of the Lord. His demise will be well associated with the signs of God’s judgment that will fill the heavens when the Lord comes in judgment. Physical death even now is a frightening end to our time in the light of life. Our only hope is to be found in the eternal Savior who is the light of the world now, and the shining radiance of the age to come.
This is not just the story of one man. The reality of death comes upon all men and empires. We are deeply affected when we hear of the death of one great man who was once exalted in pride. In the case of Pharaoh, the instrument of his destruction will be the king of Babylon and his armies, but it is the Lord who is using this instrument. The consequences will come not only upon Pharaoh, but on the nation of Egypt and its haughty pride. The problem of Egypt was not a problem of environment. Pharaoh and his people were the problem. The Lord says that when Babylon destroys them, the rivers will soon be clean.
This assessment of Pharaoh and the one that follows it about the nation were songs of mourning. It is a sad thing, at least in some sense, to see the fall of the proud. Everything about God’s glory is great, but this does not change the fact that certain things are still sad. It is sad to think of a nation going down to the world of the dead. There the people see other proud nations that have already finished there days. There they all are, along with many nations who do not bear the sign of the covenant. They once spread terror in the land of the living. They once lived with the mighty, but they are not in the place of mighty men now, for they have been slain by the sword.
There is Assyria and all her company. There is Elam and Meshech-Tubal. There is Edom with her kings and her princes. There are the Sidonians and all the princes of the north. They were all mighty in their day, but despite their greatness they are now laid down in the world of the dead with all those they killed. Pharaoh and the Egyptians will not be alone. They will be brought low in death, as were all these other proud and great powers. The Lord’s acts of judgment take our breath away!
Many powerful men presume to be like God. They may wish to be known as great people who must be feared, people who spread terror in the land of the living. God is far above them. When the Lord comes again to judge the living and the dead, who shall stand? The Day of Judgment is a frightening day, because One who is greater than any ruler will spread the terror of His justice as He comes with all his angelic host together with all who are resting in Christ.
The Lord has provided only one answer to free us from the terror of that Day. It is amazing that this one answer did not come in the form of a frightening king. Born in the most humble condition, he surely escaped the attention of almost everyone. He came with healing. He taught about the most unusual kingdom, calling it the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. Stranger still was His death, whereby His people were purchased according to His divine purpose. Pharaoh and the great men of Egypt would never have imagined that such a thing could happen. But then, they were long gone from the land of the living by the time of His arrival. Their fall was only a sad story from the distant past when Christ came to die for His people.
We still celebrate His death so many centuries after that horrifying and great event, and we insist that He is alive. The most humble of kings has now been exalted to the highest station of resurrection life. He is the only answer for us who would otherwise deserve the fullness of God’s wrath.
The man who truly speaks for the Lord God has a special responsibility. This point has been made already in this book of prophecy, but now it is reiterated as the prophet begins a new section of the book. The prophet is a watchman. Part of His responsibility is to warn the people concerning the Lord’s judgment. Any watchman should be well situated at a high lookout point at the edge of the city. He lives on the border between the city he protects and the world outside. He cannot wait for dangerous armies to knock at the city gates before he sounds the alarm. He is looking and waiting. He is ready to sound the trumpet when he sees the signs of danger. If he does his job, and the city will not take notice, the watchman has nothing to be ashamed of. Each man should hear the warning, and each man is responsible to take appropriate action.
But what if the watchman is not true to his calling? Then when trouble comes, who is really at fault? The watchman must face some of the blame in that day of calamity. He saw the sword coming, but he did not blow the trumpet. God will hold such a man responsible for the trouble that swiftly overtakes the city.
In the case of God’s covenant people, the danger is ultimately from a just and holy God, and the trumpet call is a warning of a prophet or a preacher who sees the wickedness of the people, and knows the truth of a holy God. Even when the prophet does not speak forthrightly and clearly to the people, the people are still guilty before God for their own actions, but the prophet must share in their guilt. No matter how holy or righteous he may be, he saw the trouble coming and he did not adequately sound the alarm. His position is one of responsibility, and he must understand that when he considers when to speak and when to keep silent. It is a matter of life and death, not only for the people, but also for the prophet.
With that in mind, the Lord does have something to say to His people, and He will bring this message to them in the land of their exile. He will bring them a message of life through repentance. They may think that there is no hope for them because of their former sins. God announces through Ezekiel that the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He is very happy to see the wicked come to grips with the truth and to take appropriate action. There is a way of life that is opened up to them, but they must repent. They know what they have been taught concerning what is right and good, and they know what they need to do now to be honest before the Lord. They must do this if they truly want to live.
How many baptized people in our day live with a clear knowledge of what they should be doing, but they bring all manner of unnecessary trouble upon their lives because they refuse to be serious about worship and obedience? The Lord will discipline those whom He loves. He may even take them away in their unnecessary distress, protecting them by His grace from even worse sin and damage among the land of the living. Why will you die, O house of Israel? The Lord calls you to repent and live.
The Lord is active in your lives. He is working with you today. He is not interested in past moments of righteousness. You know the way that He has for you even now. He will not allow you to trust in your own righteousness and then to turn to greater wickedness as if He was not there. Nor should the wicked man think that there is no way of hope for him. Such a man can repent and live at any time.
Will men continue to refuse to repent? Will they continue to try to deflect the honest message of God for them, as if they could wish away the God who both loves them and disciplines them? This will not work. It will not do anyone any good to try to make the case that God is in the wrong for what He has done. He judges us according to our ways. We should stop trusting in former righteousness. We should repent and live.
God has given the prophet a voice. It is the voice of the Son of Man calling to His people. The God of grace still calls people to a life of individual responsibility in this world under the sun. Willful sin is still dangerous, because God is alive, and God loves us. Will we trust in our own strength when we obviously sin against the Lord? The God who can bless the church in a moment can bring desolation as well.
Many people have thought throughout the centuries that prophets put on a pretty good show. They liked to hear them for their entertainment value. It was all good fun. When the Son of Man went to the cross to suffer hell for us, it was not fun. It is He who sends out His messengers even today. He knows that we know the truth about our sin. He is the One who calls us back to Himself. He bids us to repent and find peace and security again in Him.
God has sent a prophet among His people. There is a true watchman and He has spoken the Word. Has Christ died for our sins? Then let us repent and live.
The leaders of Israel and Judah were supposed to serve as shepherds over God’s people. If the leaders are the shepherds, then the people are the sheep. The shepherds were told to watch over the sheep. They were especially given the task of feeding the sheep, but they slaughtered them instead of caring for them. When Christ spoke to Peter after the resurrection, He instructed Peter to feed His sheep. Peter was to be a teaching officer within the covenant community. This feeding refers to the teaching of God’s Word. God has always considered it to be a very serious deficiency when His leaders do not present the truth of His Word to His people.
When leaders feed God’s sheep, they are thinking about what the people really need. They are willing to live sacrificially in order for the people to learn what they need to know so that the whole family of God can grow in their service of the Lord. The alternative to this is to force the weak sheep to sacrifice their lives for the shepherds. In that case, the leaders are not teaching the people the way of life. Instead of feeding the sheep, they spend their efforts in slaughtering the sheep. The true shepherd of the sheep would have a special regard for those who were in need – those who were sick, injured, or lost. The false shepherd wants to kill the sheep and eat them. They either destroy the sheep or ignore them, leaving them in danger from wild beasts. The end result of Old Testament leaders abusing their role as teachers and servants is that God’s flock had badly wandered far away from the Lord and were scattered everywhere.
God was against these false shepherds, and He was determined to punish them. God loves His sheep, and if His shepherds are going to slaughter the sheep, God will defend His sheep by coming against the shepherds. God will seek out His scattered flock, and He will rescue them. He will bring them back into the land so that they can dwell there in safety. God Himself will feed them the Word if His leaders refuse to feed His sheep. God will take care of the weak among them, and do the job of shepherd that the leaders have refused to perform.
The problem of the Old Testament covenant community was not merely poor leadership. When God spoke of taking over that role more directly and shepherding His own flock, He warned His people that He would judge between the sheep. He knew well that some of them were polluting the waters of God’s land with the sin of their lives. They showed a lack of concern for the weak in their midst. Some got fat while others starved. There was an inadequate appreciation for their oneness in the Lord’s house. God would change this through His shepherding of the flock. Even today, we should always remember that the Lord will not allow the strong to abuse the weak in His house. He will step in and save.
The way that God will save is through His promise to send One Great Shepherd of the sheep who He calls here “my servant David.” The actual David was long gone from under the sun. When God speaks of “David” here, He is referring to a descendant of David who will be the long-expected Messiah King. When Jesus, the greatest Son of David, is the Good Shepherd over the Lord’s people, then God will be their God. Christ is called the Prince among God’s people. In the provision of His Son for His church, the Lord has given us the greatest display of Himself, for Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible God.
Because this One Great Shepherd not only gave His life for the sheep, but now lives forever as our great Leader, we have a secure hope of an age of perfect covenant peace. We now experience this hope by faith. When our Shepherd returns we will know this peace without any of the stain of sin or any of the weight of misery. Now we face some of the challenges that come with living in an old world with the effect of the common curse upon mankind. The trees do not always yield fruit. We sometimes face the oppression of wicked and abusive governments. Foreign invaders and enemies can make life difficult for us. Hunger and disease take their toll upon the lives of Your people. Even beyond this, we have the shame of our own sin. We feel the Lord’s hand of disciplinary love and the sting of necessary correction, or simply the reminder that we need to stay alert to God’s goodness and His presence among us. Sometimes it feels like we are all alone, though we know that this is not the case. At certain times even the church and our own families give us surprising cause for sadness.
Yet when our great Shepherd returns, the new kingdom will come in its fullness. We long for the return of this great Savior who has displayed His covenant faithfulness at the cost of His own blood. Until that day of His return, may God help us to continue to hear the voice of the One who speaks to us through His Word. He has loved us with the best love ever known. Even now there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God has much to say about the forgotten nation of Edom. One of the surrounding nations of Judah, this south-eastern neighbor was made up of the descendants of Esau. We remember from Genesis that Jacob and Esau were twin brothers. Though they were not identical, they shared the same home in the safety of their mother Rebekah as they were preparing for birth. Even before they were born, these brothers were striving with each other. At that time it was revealed to Rebekah that, contrary to custom, the older would serve the younger. Esau was born first, and Jacob second, but Jacob was the child of God’s blessing. Jacob’s name was later changed to Israel, and he was the father of the twelve tribes. Esau was the father of the Edomites.
There were troubles between the two boys as they grew. This especially came to a head when their mother Rebekah conspired with Jacob to gain the blessing of their elderly father Isaac. Their plan was successful, bringing great grief to the older brother. Esau was soon consoling himself with the thought of murdering Jacob. Jacob was sent away by his parents and God blessed him through a time of significant suffering at the hands of his father-in-law Laban. After many years of being away from home, Jacob eventually met his brother Esau, and the two seemed to be well reconciled. However, the root animosity between these two descendants of Isaac was never really healed. This was particularly obvious when Israel and Judah suffered at the hands of their enemies from the eastern empires. The Edomites rejoiced in the discipline of the descendants of Jacob, and the Lord was not pleased about this.
God has a special love for His people, and those who set themselves up as their enemies, and who rejoice when trouble comes upon His covenant community, will face a very powerful adversary in the Lord. The Edomites are said here to have cherished perpetual enmity against the Israelites. There was no good reason for the descendants of Esau to continue in their age-old hatred of this brother nation. It would do them no good to look for the destruction of Judah.
Because they rejoiced at the shedding of the blood of the descendants of Jacob, the Lord would bring about His plan for the shedding of their own blood. We should hate bloodshed. We should never celebrate when an enemy attacks one of our neighbors. How much more should we have some natural sympathy for all of the descendants of Isaac? The Edomites wanted to see blood flowing from the descendants of Jacob, so the Lord was prepared to show forth His own response to their vicious impulses.
God’s plans for Edom (or Mount Seir) were not just a period of discipline. He would make the land a desolation. Would he have any remedy for this nation? It does not appear to be the case from this chapter of the Bible. The land of Esau would be a perpetual desolation.
What was the motive of the Edomites in their ill-will toward Judah? It was more than an ancient case of sibling rivalry. This southern neighbor saw great opportunity to take the lands to their north and west. This is a tremendous show of disrespect to the Lord. God made Jacob to be who he was. God was the one who determined the status of both boys before they were even born. To hate Jacob and to think that Judah’s discipline was a great time to satisfy greedy longings for power and possession was a very serious mistake. The anger and the envy of the Edomites would bring God’s judgments against them.
When the Edomites railed against God’s nation, they were railing against God. He could remove them in a moment. They had only existed according to His pleasure. There is no rule that any nation must last forever. Where are the Edomites today? They met their end. They are gone.
When Jesus Christ speaks of the judgment that will come against the world, one of the things that He points to is the question of how we have treated the covenant people of God. During the days of Ezekiel, the descendants of Jacob were the covenant people of the Lord. Though they faced His strong discipline, He loved them, and He would defend them. To attack Judah without the Lord’s instruction or to take joy in their difficulty was a direct offence against God.
In our day the covenant people of God is the church of Jesus Christ. Our status of inclusion in His kingdom is seen in true faith in Christ. We are the elect people of the Lord, and He will defend us. His Son died for our sins. When we are attacked, it is Christ who is being attacked. The sign of those who have true peace with God is this: How have we treated the least of the brethren of the Lord? The church is the only “nation” of eternal blessing today. It is the worst kind of foolishness to stand against the people for whom the Son of Man has shed His blood. He will come again as the Lord of judgment. Why would anyone think that it would be safe to oppress the people for whom the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood?
There are times when the Lord addresses inanimate objects as if they were persons. Sometimes they are called to be witnesses to something that someone is saying or doing. Here God speaks to the mountains of Israel, as if they needed relief from the evil talk of the nations or the sinful activity of God’s people. We hear of this kind of thing when the Lord’s speaks of giving rest to the land through the exile of the people, since Israel would not follow the Sabbath year regulations. The Lord loves even the mountains of Israel, and will defend them from outside attack or the corruption of the inhabitants of the land. Why does God speak this way? Perhaps we are reminded of God’s special purposes for every detail of creation. Everything has a role to play, and it is all moving toward a good end. In the case of the land of Israel, through God’s care for the land we are reminded that we will one day be in a place of new creation. God loves the land of heaven, and He will not allow any enemy to destroy it. This is a comforting thought.
God has no intention of giving up his land to the Edomites, or to any other power. He is jealous for this place. It is not for these other nations to take what is God’s. Yes, the Lord has disciplined His people, but He has not abandoned His purposes. It will not be up to the world to be a guardian of heaven. The Lord will speak for His own land.
God’s purpose for the land is not to make it a nature preserve or a wildlife refuge. He will bring His people back into the land. There He will once again fill the land with both man and beast. Something about this promise seems to go beyond the present age. Yes, God will bring back some exiles from Babylon, but will He do more good in Canaan than He has ever done before? Will the land be a place where the children of Israel do not die? It seems more likely that God is using the prophecy of a time of blessing to capture the imagination of the people about a coming day which is more than they can ask for or even imagine. If that is the case, then we have here the first hints in Ezekiel of something that will eventually be indisputable. A visionary time of blessing beyond this life is being revealed to those who will hear and believe. This is done using the places and practices of the Lord’s Old Covenant people, but the final fulfillment of these words goes far beyond their day. There is an exciting day of new creation life coming for the land and for the people of the kingdom.
This day will be so much better than the former days of glory in Israel. In that day there was so much sin. They made the land unclean. God disciplined them for their deeds. He cast them out of the land, and dispersed them among the nations, and the nations spoke against God’s people. In the lands where they were dispersed they were a poor testimony to the Lord’s holiness and power, for they continued to profane His name.
The Lord will defend His own holy Name. This is a more fundamental motivation than even His love for His people. He saves His people for the glory of His Name. He does not glorify His Name in order to save His people. The nations will know the glory of the Lord. This is a very good thing, and God will surely do it. For the glory of His Name, God will bring about the kingdom of heaven and He will populate the land with a renewed citizenry, people who have renewed hearts and spirits that are alive. He will cleanse us from above, and He will put His Spirit within us. The Lord has begun to do this through the church, but one day we will see the fullness of this wonderful work in the land of resurrection. He will make that place to be a land of unparalleled prosperity and fruitfulness. There will be no famine there. This must be something more than the land of Israel in the New Covenant era. Remember the account of the famine described in Acts and Paul’s letters? There is something of heaven here to be sure. God will bring us the fullness of repentance and resurrection life. Ruined places will be rebuilt, and the people will grow in great number. This is a vision that is greatly to be sought. These are things that we are told that we can ask God for, and God will do them for the glory of His Name.
The Lord is not stingy with His plans. The Israel of God that the Lord has planned for at the return of Christ is not a place of scarcity. Scarcity is a part of the current age. Now we have great needs. We have disease, decay, and death, but this will not always be the case.
Such a big blessing requires a very new order of things. We cannot accomplish such great things without resurrection bodies. Our mortality must put on immortality. It will not do for us to slug along in bodies that face the ravages of disease with household budgets that are often in deficit spending, and hearts that are sad for unknown reasons. These facts are a part of the current creation which is groaning under the weight of the fall and the curse.
There is an answer to all of that groaning. Christ has entered this current age in order to suffer the weight of the wrath of the Father for us. He groaned under the penalty that was due us for our rebellion, and He accomplished our salvation. The greatest display of His victory came through His resurrection. He is in a most unusual situation at present. He is the one man in the condition of resurrection immortality in this current age. He is the proof of the age to come, together with the gift of His Spirit living in the hearts of those who have been called by Him. Through Him we rejoice with abundant joy, as we lay hold of the age to come by faith in His sure Word. We who believe in Him are eager to walk those glorious mountains to come. All of the Lord’s promises will be fulfilled. His Name will be glorified. We will be loved and kept forever. The fact of resurrection is not for us to doubt. It is ours to believe.
The Lord had an important message not only for the exiles of Judah in Babylon, but for the New Testament church; a message that started with a valley of dry bones. When we consider bones that are said to be very dry, the point is that they are old and dead. The Spirit of the Lord leads Ezekiel around this valley of dry bones and asks the prophet a crucial question: “Can these bones live?” If there is no way for dead bones to live, then God cannot bring life from death, and there is no resurrection from the dead, at least not from the substance of our old, old, mortal bodies. Surely God knows the answer to this question. It is important that we embrace the Lord’s answer.
The Lord gives an answer by using Ezekiel in the process of bringing the bones to life. God tells him to prophesy over the bones. Somehow through the preaching of the authorized representative of the Word of the Lord, God will do an amazing thing. God will put sinews on the bones, and He will cover the bones with skin, and God will put the breath of life back into the bones and there will be life. This Ezekiel does, and everything happened as God had said it would. There was only one thing lacking. There was no breath in them.
In the Biblical languages, the word for wind and breath is the same word as “spirit.” The breath missing in these new bodies is probably best understood as the spirit of the departed man. The solution is interesting. God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the spirit, calling the spirit to enter into the body again. When we die, there is a divide between our spirit and our body. Our body rests in the grave, eventually becoming dry bones. Our spirit could never be buried with our dead body. Our spirit goes to be with the Lord, waiting for the coming day of the resurrection of the body. Here God instructs His prophet to speak to that spirit calling the spirit back now to a new resurrection body. This is an exciting moment of resurrection life. We have a taste of that moment when we believe in Christ. Our spirit, which was dead in sin, is made alive by God. That spirit is now housed in a mortal body which will die one day, but the final abode of our eternal spirit is a resurrection body brought forward from our old dry mortal remains.
God speaks here to His covenant community Israel, and assures them of a coming resurrection of the dead. The Lord will not let the dry bones of His elect remain forever in the grave. What was obviously mortal will be made alive in a new way. We will have immortality! Our spirit will be closely connected with the Spirit of the Lord, who lives now within the lives of the Lord’s children. God will bring us into the land, not the land of the old Jerusalem, but the new Jerusalem that the Lord has promised to Jews and Gentiles who are part of His kingdom. This is how God will display His power. He will do this.
In that day, the distinction between the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom of Israel and Judah will be gone. There will be one covenant people. At the time of the exile, it was enough of an amazing thought to consider that there would again be one Israel. Not since the days of David and Solomon had such a thing happened. But God would do more than that. Not only would the Lord gather the descendants of Jacob from the places where they had been scattered among the nations. God would even gather other people from the nations, and they will be included in that great day. They will all be God’s people and He will be their God.
We know that this must be the case because of the context of this vision. The resurrection of the dead will happen when Christ returns. The words at the end of this chapter about “David my servant” refer to a King, a Shepherd, and a Prince over God’s people forever. This descendant of David can only be Jesus Christ. Therefore, the vision here cannot have a complete fulfillment in an Old Testament setting. Christ the King has come. His reign was announced in the words above His cross. His life was announced through an empty tomb. He was the first one to have His Spirit enter back into His body after His death. He will not be the last one. There will be generations of God’s covenant people who will be alive forever because of what Jesus Christ has done.
In that day, we will not be sinning against the Shepherd of our souls. We will dwell with Him in the new land, and we will obey the Lord’s statutes. Our peace with God will be secure, and nothing will ever take it away. God will bring His people home, and we will be wonderfully alive. His sanctuary will be in our midst forever. We will be with God, and He will be with us.
None of this would have been remotely possible without the work of this one Son of David. He has justified us with His blood. He will sanctify us with His Spirit. He will surely glorify us in the day when dry bones are brought back to life, and when the spirits of just men made perfect are reunited with promised resurrection bodies. “Can these dry bones live?” Yes they can and they will. By the power and grace of God and through the voice of the Son of God, dry bones will indeed live.
In this section of Ezekiel’s prophecy the prophet is leading us into the great fulfillment of all of God’s plans. Before we are introduced to the new visionary Jerusalem and the new wonder of a temple with a stream that sends the water of life throughout the world, we first see a host of enemies who would love to be able to stop the plans of God. These enemy nations have a captain over them. He is given the name “Gog” of the land of Magog, and He is said to be chief prince of tribal peoples, far-off from the people of the promise.
The various nations and peoples that are mentioned in these chapters are symbolic place-holders for the host of foreign lands from every side that would seem to converge against the people of God in the Promised Land. Rather than being a special code for some future political entities, they stand for the beast of the world/false church coming against the true people of God in the final battle of the ages. At the head of this unholy world is a singular figure, who would lead the world against the church of Jesus Christ. Any identification of this individual or identification of the time or the specific location of some end-times battle is highly speculative and beside the point here. We know that the temple that is mentioned at the end of Ezekiel is the same as the temple that Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, and this must stand for the church, since we understand from the New Testament that the church with Christ as Head is the true temple now, and not any building in Jerusalem.
That temple has a river flowing from it. This river flows into the sea turns the water there into fresh water. This is just one detail in the extended symbolic picture of New Covenant expansion and the culmination of the Lord’s glorious kingdom. We will examine these details in the chapters ahead as we are able. What we need to see now is that these visionary chapters are not for our speculation concerning secret events of future millennia. They are visionary representations of what is presented in very clear language in other parts of the Scriptures. We are richer for these visionary passages, provided that we do not use them to overturn the clearer passages that speak of the Lord’s decrees for the ages.
Ezekiel lived in the Old Covenant age. That age is now gone. Since the coming of the Messiah and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit we have lived in the New Covenant Age. In this age the gospel must be preached to all the nations. At the end of this age there will be a great apostasy associated with one figure of rebellion from within the church. He will only be able to go so far. At just the right time Christ will return bringing the age to come including the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment. Within this framework it should be clear that this Gog of Magog is the coming figure of rebellion and “the nations that are at the four corners of the earth” that he represents. This is precisely what John says in Revelation 20:8. Such a man together with all His allies will be utterly defeated at the return of Christ in glory.
In this great drama of the ages, Gog of Magog must play his part according to the sovereignty of God. It is as if the Lord is giving him instructions here so that he will not miss his cue. How humiliating! His evil thoughts and schemes are well-known to God, and fit into His larger plan of grace. Gog will play his part, but our holy God, the God of His chosen people, will be vindicated and His people will be rescued.
This Gog is not the only player in the Lord’s drama of the end of this current age. The Sword of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come in glory. God’s wrath will be aroused against this Gog. There will be a great earthquake that seems to be like the expected trumpet blast mentioned in other passages. This will signal the rolling up of this created order, and the appearing of the new heavens and the new earth. God will send His Sword against Gog, and He will enter into judgment against this enemy of the Lord and His people. He and His hordes will meet their final defeat, thought it had appeared for a moment that they would overwhelm the church. This will be a great revelation of God’s glory.
To what can we compare this amazing display of the Lord’s wrath? It is bigger than the flood. It is far more spectacular than the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is more amazing then the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea at the time of the Exodus.
There is only one event that can compare. That event may not have seemed like much to the undiscerning observer, though it was also attended by an earthquake and darkness in the heavens. On that day the wrath of God did not come down upon a violent horde of enemies. God’s justice came against one sinless Man, the beloved Son of the Most High God, the one who will come again as the double-edged Sword of the Lord, who is Himself the Word of God. The cross of Christ, together with His resurrection, ascension, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, was a sign of the turning of the age. Through the cross, the fury of the Lord’s just retribution fell on one sinless Substitute.
Away with foolish speculations! Nothing must detract from this one clear biblical fact: The judgment you deserved at the hands of a holy God has either been faced by Jesus Christ when He died for His people, or you must face His judgment among the many who want only the destruction of His Son, His gospel, and His church. This is the stark fact that we must consider: Who is more beautiful to your heart, the mighty Gog of Magog who comes to kill, or the Christ of heaven who came to die?
God is sovereign over everything. He is the Ruler over not only His blessings, but also His curses. He uses whatever means He has ordained in order to accomplish His perfect purposes. When He speaks in the prior chapter of one symbolic leader of evil called “Gog” of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, it first seems that this may be another instance of the Lord using the nations (like Assyria and Babylon) to discipline His people. It is clear that the Lord is in charge of this wicked ruler, and that Gog’s time of waging war together with all his warrior host is surely appointed by God. By the end of Ezekiel 38 and as we move into chapter 39 it becomes very clear that the tables will be suddenly turned, and that the Lord will rescue His church and bring an overwhelming end-of-the-world kind of judgment against the world system and all who are in league with it, especially Satan and his horde on earth who lures others into the worship of some impressive Gog.
If it seems strange to adopt a visionary big-picture interpretation of these passages, if instead we are to approach these texts as laden with many secret semi-literal clues of future rulers and events set aside for intelligent interpreters to discover, I wonder if the horses mentioned in the earlier chapters are real horses. Is this Gog and his league of nations allied against Israel actually mounting a frightening offensive against a reconstituted Israel by coming through the desert on horses? Is there some other way of interpreting a detail like horses? It seems far more likely that the Lord is speaking through His prophet using the details that would have made sense in that day to talk about an amazing and marvelous New Covenant future. There will be a massive struggle between the world and the church throughout the entire New Covenant era. At times there will be specific individuals, institutions, nations, and religious movements that are very apt illustrations of what these passages are presenting in symbolic language. We will know whether a person is the real “Gog” by what comes of his evil efforts. If much of the church follows after him and then Christ returns, then we will know that that one was the real Gog! All the guessing in the world will not break this code, because it is an expressive vision, and not a treasure map that you need a magic decorder ring or some special glasses to read and understand. There are many figures throughout history that could have made very fine Gogs, but all this is not going to reach its culmination according to Gog’s will. It will all finally come to pass according to God’s will. When there is an amazingly widespread apostasy and the Lord returns and pushes the vile enemy out of the way forever, we will know that the real Gog finally came. On that day we will be much more interested in the truth that the real God has come. There is no profit that will come from guessing about Gogs as the centuries move forward.
The point of the wonderfully expressive language in these chapters is simple: God will certainly win, and all the enemies among men and angels will not be able to change that in the slightest. The defeat of the Lord’s enemies will ultimately be swift and complete. The struggle is quite intense and lengthy at present. The Lord is only waiting for His own appointed time, and then everything will happen completely according to His plan. Do you ever wonder whether something might go very wrong at the end of this all, and God will end up defeated? Do not wonder. That’s what this chapter is saying. The Lord can win with one Word.
The defeat of evil through the presence of the Lord is not a novel theme. God has spoken of this through earlier prophets. His victory will be massive. His people will be greatly blessed, all the frightening weapons of their enemies will make excellent firewood for a good long time. In other words, there will be perfect peace and security. The meek will inherit the earth.
The defeat of the enemy will be so full and complete that people will be discovering and burying their bones for months. The birds and the beasts will have quite a feast on the defeated foes. We will no longer live in unbelief and doubt. We will all know that the Lord is God, and that He is our God. God will restore the fortunes of His people. He will have mercy, and He will love His people with a perfect holy jealousy – meaning that they will know of His special love that permits no other husband or false god. He will pour out His Spirit upon His beloved Israel.
This has already begun to happen in the New Testament era. The Word has come. Our sins are forgiven. Our hope is secure. We have the down-payment of the Holy Spirit in the church. What glorious blessings are given to us through faith in Christ! The person without faith in the one Messiah who died on the cross for His beloved bride will find the blessings that we have now to be most unimpressive. It may seem to such a man to be just a lot of words. Where is the money? Where is the food? Where are the lands? Where is the power? To those who have eyes to see, we are already rich in Christ. He is already the best Bread for our souls. We have a secure deed through His blood to a land that we are convinced is more real than any estate that someone may lay claim to in this age. We even have been given the power to love and to pursue holiness in the fear of God. As great as these things are, we are overcome with a present joy because of the sure promise of what we have not yet received in full. We believe that the Word will come again. His victory will be more complete than we can imagine at present, and we are truly happy, for our Redeemer will not lose, and He will quickly rescue us from the deceptive clutches of the most impressive Gog.
Fourteen years after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Ezekiel was brought in visions of God to behold a New Jerusalem. We have the privilege of contemplating this vision since it is recorded for our benefit in the Scriptures. It is fitting that after our consideration of the Lord’s judgment upon the world that we would be able to rejoice in His full plan of salvation for the church. Here is a new Israel seen from on high with the benefit of a heavenly guide. Here was something for the eyes, the ears, and the heart to truly behold, and then for the mouth of the gospel messenger to declare to all of the Lord’s people so that they would not lose heart in the midst of their grieving.
This is first a vision of a temple, as if everything is somehow a temple. Our attention is directed to the massive wall. There is a separation between the outside and the inside. We are also told about its gates and the rooms and vestibule associated with these gates. Everything seems big and wonderful. Everything is also very orderly and exact. There are many windows mentioned adorned with designs from nature, specifically palm trees.
One of the things that we notice is that there is movement from outward to inward, and we keep on ascending up steps the further into the interior that we travel. We first move up the steps near the wall through the gate into the first portico. We could continue along the pavement by the outer court along the exterior border of the rooms on three of the four sides of this amazing edifice, but everything within us wants to move further inside into the more expansive inner courtyard and then up the steps again into the inner gateways that lead to another court up to the temple portico.
We survey the gates on the east, north, and south sides. We measure everything, but not like inspectors who have to approve of the work that has been done. We are admirers who are overcome by the wonder of this place. We say, “Is this mine?” We want to stay there and enjoy the beauty, the symmetry, the perfections of the vision. Everything is right. Everything is in order, and we do not even know how it was built. When Moses was instructed to build the tabernacle, we were told what was to be done, and then the actual building of the components was described. When Solomon build the temple there was a period of preparation under David and his son, and then the building process is described and the completion of it is celebrated. The tabernacle and the temple under the Law were built through the works of man. Who will be the Builder and Maker of this house? Is it a house that can only be received by grace?
As we continue in this vision we have ascended the steps to the court that leads up to another set of steps for entrance into the temple portico. Now our focus is on the place for sacrifice. The burnt offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering are mentioned. This is a jarring realization. Though the gift of this great place is free to us, yet there was a cost to secure the peace with God that is represented here. The cost of grace has come through sacrifice. We are partakers of the benefit. The Messiah has paid the price with His own life. The hooks and the tables are reminders to us of the suffering by which we have received a glorious peace.
When we think of the altar there in the midst of this court, we are reminded of this one death. It is amazing to consider that through the sacrifice of the Son of God, we now have a place as priests in this amazing vision of the temple of grace. The enemies of the cross have been defeated. They have no share in this part of the vision. Yet Christ was treated as an enemy for us, so that we might be with Him in this glorious temple.
Why is all of this happening? Why is Ezekiel being brought here fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem in order to see this vision? God wants His people to know, especially at a time when it might seem that all hope is lost, that the day of a glory temple/city is coming. It can be shown through various visions and images, but the reality is always the same. There is a much better day coming, and you have a part in that day if you are in Christ.
This particular vision was perfect for the time of Ezekiel. The great city of God is shown in glorious imagery perfect for those who lived under the Law. They understood the temple built by Solomon. We look at diagrams, and make sure that we can distinguish the court around the perimeter of the structure from the expansive court beyond that and then the court by the temple portico. We try to understate what is meant by the description of the gates and the windows. We walk through this place in our imaginations, but they walked through Solomon’s temple with their feet. This was first for them as they mourned the destruction of the former temple. Something glorious was coming.
Of what use is it all to us now? As we benefit from a consideration of the tabernacle and of the planning and construction of Solomon’s temple, as we think about the symbolic meaning of these things under the Law, we know with even more certainty than our brothers of old were able to comprehend that a new day is coming, for we are already partakers of that day in the New Covenant church and in the ascended Christ. In Him we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We appreciate the Old Covenant imagery, and we rejoice in the coming day of the fullness of the eternal glory presence of the Lord. Like those who mourned something that was lost fourteen years before by God’s discipline, we too have setbacks, and we grieve the hardness of the hearts of men, including our own. Yet we know that the appointed sacrifice has come, and that He has accomplished our redemption. This temple is ours, and we will be there with our brothers and sisters of faith from the period of the Law. Even Gentiles now have a share in every blessing that was first announced through this wonderful imagery to Old Covenant believers.
The Scriptures are full of a variety of passages. Each one has its own style and purpose. All of it is valuable. Not all of it is easily understood. Ezekiel’s vision of a new temple in Jerusalem is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to consider. This does not mean that we should ignore it. As with many visionary sections of the Bible, before we interpret the images, we should see them and feel them.
So far, we have made our way with Ezekiel and his angelic guide into the temple area. We have moved beyond the wall. We have enjoyed the gates, and the temple courts. Now we must move on, and this is what we want to do. We want to go into the temple itself. This is the place where God meets with His people. The nave is the main section of the temple. What a privilege it is for us to be in the Holy Place. As with everything that we have enjoyed up to this point, we are here as admirers and those who desire to be worshippers rather than as inspectors. The dimensions of the doors and the spaces for worship are just what they should be. It is an amazing thing that as sinners we are yet able to travel with Ezekiel into this most wonderful edifice in all of the New Jerusalem.
When Jesus was going to the cross, He told His disciples that the old temple would soon be destroyed. Earlier in His ministry He spoke about His body as the temple, a dwelling place of God. Christ would lay down that body temple in His death, and would then pick it up again in His resurrection. It is an amazing fact that we have been united into this body of Christ. Like those who have the privilege of walking within the vision of Ezekiel’s glory temple, we have been invited by God to consider ourselves as members of Christ’s own body.
In the vision of the temple, we have been drawn up higher and higher toward the Lord. Could we be satisfied with anything less than the Most Holy Place? Access to this square room beyond the curtain was severely restricted in the Old Covenant temple. Like the earlier nave or Holy Place, the Most Holy Place is perfect in its dimensions and appearance. This is the very center of God’s holiness. It is the greatest desire of the righteous worshipper of God to dwell in the Lord’s presence forever. But will we have access to this sacred space? Only through the blood of Christ.
Around the wall of the temple are side chambers in three stories. This is our Father’s house, and true to His Son’s promise, here there are many rooms. Once again, we marvel at the privilege that is ours. As we walk about this place in our hearts and minds, we remember that we have something more than Ezekiel’s vision. We have Christ in us, the hope of glory.
The temple that the prophet is exploring is securely built. It is solid and spacious. It will never go away. It cannot be destroyed by men. The temple that God builds of His New Testament church will never fail. Through faith in Christ, we are partakers of a solid hope.
As wonderful as this angelic tour of our glorious hope is, it does not go far enough. It is important that we look beyond the Old Testament imagery here to see a bigger vision. We get a sense of this in the last book of the Bible. It is wonderful to see John’s apocalyptic vision of a new kingdom with twenty-four elders and some impressive angels, but we soon see that there is a bigger blessing coming. We see myriads of angels and a vast multitude that no man can count. The promise to Abraham so long ago was a very big promise, and all of it will be fulfilled.
It is fitting that Ezekiel’s temple is full of heavenly imagery. It is all beautiful and delightfully spiritual. Here we find a special table before the Lord. We note that it is an altar of wood. There is no mention of it being overlaid with gold. Is this because that altar will never need to contain fire? Is it an indication that no further sacrifice will be needed, since Christ has already been sacrificed, that we might have the most secure assurance of our eternal dwelling with God?
The doors of the kingdom of God have been opened to us through Christ the Lord. There is so much ahead of us as we contemplate the glory of God, and the beauty of the Lord in His temple. This vision should move us to consider two very important realities.
First, Jesus our Savior is the Great Final Temple of God, and we have the amazing blessing of being in Him and with Him forever. We should be walking around the Scriptures continually to explore the beauty of the Lord. He has chosen to be closely associated with us.
Second, the Body of Christ is our eternal home. It will one day be the greatest temple in the Lord both physically and spiritually. Even now we can move beyond the intellectual discipline of examining the doctrines of Christ and His church. We should earnestly seek the fullness of spiritual life even now. This is hard for us to understand, but the man who has been made spiritually alive can now consider it a joy to contemplate the wonders of Christ and His church.
As we continue to consider this amazing account of a new temple given in a vision at the end of Ezekiel, it may help us to think about some obvious facts. First, this vision was given to Ezekiel 14 years after the destruction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Second, this detailed account is of a temple that has never been built in all the centuries since the vision was first revealed to the prophet. Third, it is not as if other temples were not built in that time period. In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah a temple was built, and much later, King Herod built a temple. Finally, the amount of space given to this vision within this prophetic book is very remarkable. Of the 48 chapters in the book, 9 chapters deal with this temple area and the city and land at the time of the new temple. If we also include the preparatory chapters of God’s judgments and promises connected to this new temple age, over 25% of the chapters in Ezekiel cover these and related topics.
We should also add that these chapters have been set aside by many as too difficult to interpret. Many others have seen them as a blueprint for action, and they pray regularly for the plans to be fulfilled. It is not that the words are so difficult to understand. The problem is in how to use these words. Is it about a structure that is meant to be physically built, perhaps during this unusual time of a “Jewish” government in the land of Palestine? Would that rebuilding lead to something very good or something very bad? Is it instead a symbolic temple that uses Old Testament types to signify New Testament realities? If so, why all this detail? Ultimately we come to the conclusion that it is the volume of this material that leads to the greatest trouble for the teacher or preacher. How are these many verses to be used for the spiritual profit of God’s people? Surely there is a good purpose for this detailed consideration of the structure of a building that has never been built in well over 2000 years of holy anticipation. Why is it recorded in the pages of sacred Scripture?
We can say that the topic of temple is intensely interesting to God. The Old Testament worshipers thought about temple mainly in terms of building, but God also speaks about temple in terms of body. God is redeeming people and not buildings. Buildings must tell the story of God dwelling with people. People do not exist to be a sign of some greater story of God saving buildings. If we keep that in mind, we have to believe that once the redemption story of “temple” has made the clear shift out of the shadows and moved from sacred building to holy people, especially in the coming of Messiah and the expansion of His Kingdom to the whole earth through His church, we should not expect that the construction of even the most amazing building would be a development forward in the story of redemption.
What then do we do with the details of these various chapters in Ezekiel that show a longing for a temple that was never truly fulfilled in the construction of a building, despite the intentions and actions of many? It may help us to remember that these chapters were not Ezekiel’s idea. They came from God. He wanted His people to enjoy the vision, and to begin to think beyond the building to a new temple people that would know the presence of God by His Spirit.
With this fulfillment in mind let us rejoice in God’s holy temple of old. Let us explore its upper, middle, and lower chambers. We see its wonderful walls. We hear of the symmetry of various spaces. We walk in our mind’s eye through gates, and explore inner courts and outer courts. We are like children who have been invited into the most wonderful holy fort. Better than that, we are the aged exiles who hear the good news that the hope of a holy place is not utterly gone despite our wretched disobedience. We are led by the hand into this marvelous place. We are given a view for the whole area, 500 cubits by 500 cubits, and we know something of what righteous Simeon must have felt when he said to God, “Now you are letting your servant depart in peace.” We want to sing Psalm 126: “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’ The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”
Even that Psalm continues on with recognition that there is yet a holy expectation of a far better day for the people of God. We sing on, “Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”
Simeon saw the better temple, though in a very low condition as a baby born under the Law. That elderly holy man still rejoiced when He saw the wonder of the Messiah. He had been assured that He would not die before He had seen the Lord’s Anointed. He spent His time in a building set aside for worship, but when He saw Jesus He saw the Anointed One. He saw the better Temple of the Lord, now come to earth as a baby. He saw, not a priest who would eat the most holy offerings in a special room in Ezekiel’s vision. Much better than this, he saw the one who would be the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, and even the entirety of this great holy place. This baby would be a far better priest than any descendant of Aaron could ever have been, for this High Priest Jesus would live forever to be the eternal Mediator of God’s grace to His chosen people. Through this great Temple, who gave His holy body for us, we who were far off from the covenant people of God and decidedly common have become forever holy. Take a good look at the temple, and shout for joy to the Lord. He has done great things for us, and we are glad.
In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel we have recorded a famous resurrection vision. The prophet is taken to a valley of dry bones and questioned about whether these old dry bones can live. The answer is modeled before his eyes as he is told to prophesy to the bones. The bones are brought together, and eventually clothed with muscle and skin. Still there was something missing. The bones were not alive as they needed to be. Ezekiel was told to prophesy to the spirit/breath in order to bring the spirit back into the body so that the resurrection picture would be complete.
As wonderful as the glory temple tour has been thus far, there should be a question ringing in our ears because of Ezekiel 37. “Son of Man, can this building live?” The model of a new temple is wonderful. We have enjoyed the order and beauty of it, but we are less impressed with it all if it is not leading to a building that is alive with the glory of God. Now after several chapters of temple details we are relieved to see that this temple will indeed live. The same glory chariot that we remember from the earliest vision in Ezekiel is here again now. As the glory left the old temple before its destruction by the Babylonians earlier in this book, the glory now comes into this new temple, and the vision of God for His people seems complete.
The glory of God comes from the east and with the sound of rushing waters. As life-changing as the day of Pentecost and as remarkable as the river that will flow out from this temple and cleanse the world, in just a moment everything is new and alive. The Spirit of the Lord fills the temple. In Acts 2, the disciples were given new life, new boldness, and new purpose as God moves His church out from the upper room. In the gentile Pentecost of Acts 10, the assembly of the friends and family of Cornelius are also filled with the Holy Spirit in an undeniable display of divine power. The message is clear to Peter and springs up into Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem. God dwells even in the hearts of Gentiles. The Lord has a purpose for his church that transcends the boundaries of Old Covenant life. The temple is alive and is on the move. We should be amazed and glorify God who is able to fill us with His presence. That was Ezekiel’s reaction. He fell on His face before the Lord. He was lifted up by the Spirit, brought into the inner court, and He saw the longing of every redeemed heart as the glory of God filled the temple.
Somehow more than the building is apparently changed through this great happening. The Lord speaks through His angel about the change that must take place in the people of God. We hear of a new life of holiness that has always been beyond the grasp of the covenant people of the Lord. God will put away their sin, and God will dwell in their midst forever.
This message of the temple was not to be kept secret. Ezekiel was to broadcast it among the Israelites in exile. They were to consider it. They were to measure the plan as the angel had measured the spaces in the vision. The purpose of all of this was that Israel might be ashamed of her sin. There is something for us all to consider here. Let us survey the Christ who is ours and the inheritance that He brings to us now and in the age to come. Let us consider it all very carefully, and let us be ashamed of our sins and repent before the God who has so much grace for His people. Then may we do what He calls us to do in the preaching of the gospel, not just in places of convenience, but from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, even to the ends of the earth, so that the great temple of God will be finally and fully built. The end has not yet come. We must preach the gospel to all nations and endure through every tribulation, for this great salvation of God is surely coming, and we do not want to be ashamed on the day of the Lord’s appearing.
When we think of what God has in store for His sanctified people, we should carefully consider the altar of the temple. The greatness of this vision and the far-greater reality that it signifies has come at the cost of the Son of God, who was slain as our Atoning Sacrifice. The steps of the altar face east, the same direction from which the glory of the Lord has come to inhabit the temple. The blood of the sacrifice is sent forth to the Lord as a testimony of the faithfulness of His Son. The heavenly sanctuary is purified with the blood of this spotless Lamb, and the answer from heaven that returns to His people is the provision of God’s Spirit now filling the people of God, proceeding from the Father and the Son.
The full atonement has been made. Now the priests of the Lord are acceptable in the presence of God because of the blood of our Redeemer, the Messiah. Let us seek the fullness of what the Lord has purchased for us. Let us be satisfied with nothing less than the provision of God’s Spirit filling His glory temple. We will not return to Old Testament patterns, as amazing and wonderful as the story is that they tell. We now have the reality of what they pointed to, and we are pressing forward toward the fullness of the eternal plan of grace established by God since before the foundation of the world.
The temple must be full of God’s glory for all to be well in the Lord’s kingdom. We saw earlier in this book some indication of the Lord’s departure from Solomon’s temple. In the prior chapter we saw the coming of the Lord’s glory into Ezekiel’s vision of the temple. Now we read of the gate by which the Lord entered the temple being shut. We are told that it shall remain shut. It would appear that the Lord is indicating that He shall never leave the temple. There is something permanent here in this symbolism, like the words of Jesus at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” When this east gate is shut, that area becomes a room where the prince eats bread before the Lord. We need to keep in mind that there is no functioning King at the time of this prophecy. Here there is communion between the coming King of Israel and the Lord God Almighty, reminding us of Psalm 110 which records fellowship and communication between David’s Son and David’s Lord.
In verse 4 the fact that the Lord’s glory fills the temple is mentioned again. This fact was prominent in the preceding chapter. The reaction to the Lord’s glory is once again earnest worship as Ezekiel fall on his face before the glory of God. We see that every encounter with the true glory of God is fresh and overwhelming. Our experience with the final temple-body of the Lord in the age to come will never grow old.
The history of the worship of the people has not been ideal. God knows this, but their sin will not be the final end of the story here. They are a rebellious house, and that is why there has been so much trouble under the Law. That is why they have been taken into exile. That is why the temple was destroyed and the kingdom lost. The curse of the Law of Moses came upon the nation, and they lost the inheritance of Canaan and all of the good things that went with that blessing. In some future day things would be different. The weakness and impurity that were a part of their ritual lives would be overwhelmed by the Lord’s sovereign and powerful work of grace in fulfillment of the Lord’s ancient promises.
No more would foreigners have to be brought in to positions of service among the Levites just to help do the work of worship rituals. Does this negate the day of Gentiles giving worship to the Lord as the prophets have prophesied? Not at all, all elect Gentiles are brought into the kingdom through adoption in Christ. In Him they are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and are even priests to God through Jesus the Son of God.
What about those who had the right credentials by birth, but who have created problems because of their iniquity? They would be denied a place in the house of the Lord. When the Lord returns, he will purify his temple-body. Some who think that they are part of the temple will be shown to be excluded from the temple. Others will be counted as true Jews through their connection with the Prince, Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of all who have faith in His Name, both Jews and Gentiles. In this vision, those who are acceptable to minister before the Lord, are represented as the sons of Zadok, just as in Revelation John speaks of those who are accepted as the 144,000, 12,000 from each tribe. This is not teaching a different doctrine of acceptance with God than that of the rest of the New Testament. It is a visionary statement using language of purity and holiness that would have touched the hearts of the exiles who heard these words.
In Christ, we have something more than outward ceremonial holiness. Our problem of sin is not a problem of sweat, of ritually unclean garments, of long hair, of wine, or of the women that we have been with. Our problem is deeper than all of these things, and we have been fully cleansed through the blood of Christ. By His cleansing we are cleaner that the most ceremonially scrupulous priests. It is that imagery that is used here to describe the fullest purity that could only come by grace to the descendants of Adam.
The citizens of the Lord’s temple will judge the nations; yes they shall even judge angels. They will be completely separated from everything that brings death, and they shall live forever. The Lord Himself will be their inheritance.
It should be obvious that such a wonderful priesthood and such a wonderful temple could come to sinful men only by blood-bought grace through the perfections of the perfect Lamb of God. God has kept His promise to Abraham through that Lamb who is both Prince and Priest. Most of all, He is perfectly undefiled. This is the only way for us to be in the Lord’s pleasant kingdom. It should be a particular cause for rejoicing among those who are Gentiles by birth to consider that in Christ, we are now Sons of God, and joint heirs with one who is an Israelite indeed. It should also be a great joy to those who are Jews by physical descent to see that the failure of their fathers to keep the Law of God has not barred them from participation in the perfect temple of the Almighty God, and the Lamb, our great Prince.
In the days of Jesus, the temple had a commanding presence in the city of Jerusalem. The things that men do to the landscape in any city may give important clues concerning the values of the people that live there. In the case of this vision, the layout of space tells us about God, since He is the one who gives these instructions. Here we have a conspicuously large holy district, 25,000 cubits by 20,000 cubits. This entire area is to be considered holy, somehow set apart for the Lord’s purposes. Within this area is the 500 by 500 area for the sanctuary that has been our most immediate focus.
It would seem as if holiness is flowing out of the Most Holy Place in this special world, creating a large holy portion of the land. There is some power of the sacred that seems to overwhelm the common as this vision moves toward a conclusion in the final chapters of this book. It is not enough to have a small holy sanctuary in this new place. The holiness must begin to expand from a discreet holy building winning over a much larger holy land. Here we have the land for the priests and for the Levites who are dedicated to the system of worship and sacrifice. It is not enough for them to have holy garments to set themselves apart for their sacred duties. Their houses where they live with their families are holy. For those who are marked by God as holy, His presence among them diminishes the distinction between the sacred and the profane – not that everything is some mix of the two, and not that the profane overwhelms the sacred, but that somehow the power of holiness is expansive and victorious, so that it will not be limited to some small place. The holy overwhelms the common. The entirety of the lives of the Lord’s servants becomes holy.
It is striking that an adjacent separate area, called the “city,” seems to have a relatively small area compared to the holy district where the priests and Levites live. No more are there just a few places where there are towns and lands for the support of the Lord’s servants. They are right there near the new temple area, and the city is alongside this larger holy space. The area that belongs to the prince is also very conspicuous, and borders the holy district and the city on both the east and the west.
Not only will the prince have an obvious presence in the new land, He will use His resources for the good of the people. He will not consider His power as an excuse for oppression in order to get some unjust gain for himself. The prince will let the people of God have the land that God has allotted for them. Will he be a violent man who evicts the Lord’s sheep from their resting place? Far from it! The Lord (and presumably His prince) will rule over a land of justice. There will be honesty in dealings between men. The day of false weights and measures as tools of stealing the property of others will be gone. The people of the land will give to the prince, but then the prince will supply out of his abundance blessing upon blessing for the people through the system of offerings appointed by the Lord. By the wealth of the prince, the people shall know atonement. The temple will be kept holy according to the blood of the covenant. Out of the prince’s resources will come all that is necessary for the festivals to be celebrated by the prince and his people. He will supply the sin offering and all the necessary provisions for his subjects.
This is the kind of prince that a righteous people should gladly obey. Nonetheless, there are two obvious problems with that thought. First, we are not righteous people, so we do not easily submit even to a righteous Lord. Second, where can we find a righteous prince like this among the sons of men? Even if we were to find one such a man, what would we do when he died? Experience has taught us that the son may not have the same abilities or graces as the man who came before him.
God has answered these problems for us in His wonderful provision for His church. We are an eternal society of holy servants who have been promised a “new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). A distinguishing mark of the members of our society is that we recognize Christ as our King. He is a Prince without any fault, full of all the qualities necessary in order to rightly rule a godly people. Out of the abundance of His righteousness and through the gift of Himself as an offering we have all that we will ever need as a sin offering. From the bounty of His great riches we celebrate eternal communion with our God.
Two other things are worthy of our celebration even now in this present age. First, even now, when we go to be with our Prince we are immediately made perfect in holiness. That will happen to each of the Lord’s people as we lay down our lives here, and our spirits go to be with the Lord. Finally, our Prince will never die. We need not worry about the character of His successor. He will be our Ruler and Friend forever, and we shall rejoice in that perfect kingdom. The vision of Ezekiel is just a taste of a great age to come. That taste was first given to those in exile, during a time when these matters waited in the shadows. Our day is different, for a bright Light has now dawned, even among the Gentiles. We see the Temple. We love the Prince. We believe.
In this world, we who deserve only God’s wrath and curse enjoy many blessings from His hand. Yet it is undeniable that there is a problem all around us. How can we move past the barrier of death? If we were able to do this, could there be any guarantee that the world that we would enter would be truly good? God has given us a weekly sign of the final plan of His goodness since the earliest days of human existence. A day of rest that came after six days of work was a powerful symbol of the perfect Sabbath rest that man desires. In the temple that Ezekiel describes at the end of this book, the gate of the inner court that faces east, the direction from which the prince comes, will be closed except on the Sabbath day and the day of the new moon.
We still long for the perfection of Sabbath rest and for the beginning of a new day that every month symbolizes. Somehow that new day is connected with the prince. We long for that gate to be opened and for the prince to lead the way for us. Christ, we are told in Hebrews, has entered into the heavenly temple. He made the way for us through the blood of His sacrifice. He came through the gates of His righteousness, and now we may go in. There is something of this world of peace that is already ours now through Him, though we still live in a world of death. Because of our connection with Him, we have peace.
The Lord Jesus is the Prince over His gospel kingdom even now. He will surely reign forever when the fullness of His resurrection kingdom comes. He has an excellent vantage point over all the affairs of His temple. He was the first to enter on behalf of His people. He came not only as Prince, but also as Priest. He took His own offering of Himself and presented it before God. After He made peace with God for us through this perfect offering, we were brought into the celebration, with a fullness of every good thing for our communion with Him.
Provision is made in Ezekiel’s vision for the large movement of crowds of worshippers on Sabbath days. The people are to enter through one gate and to exit through the gate on the other side. The presence of the Prince with His people is noted, and we remember that our access to God is through this one Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has won for us our Sabbath rest. We now gather together on the day of His resurrection. Crowds of people from all over the world are led into the presence of God every Lord’s Day through our ascended Prince. The details of the offerings are different in Ezekiel vision than they were under the Law of Moses. There is something new pictured here. We experience the reality of that newness in the church now in ways that were pictured in the shadows of Old Testament ceremonies in the days of Ezekiel.
As was the case during the Old Testament era and in the early years of the New Testament era, the worship of the Lord is not only from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day, but morning by morning. Ezekiel presents the regulations of these daily offerings as a perpetual statute. As we live in this world now, we feel our own weakness in so many ways. Do we have the energy, or even the desire, to worship God with greater frequency? Yet there is something pictured in this vision of a more continuous experience of the life of worship which we will know when all our sin and the weakness of this age of death are far from us. The continuous blessing of the life to come is also symbolized in the security of the Prince’s inheritance through the year of liberty. As the sons of the Prince, we are joint-heirs of the kingdom with Christ forever. We ourselves are called His inheritance, and it is a comfort for us to meditate on the fact that we will always be His. The final verses of the chapter speak of the work of the priests in preparing the offerings, and the space reserved for kitchens in this new temple. It is amazing to think of the enjoyment of a meal with the Lord and His people in the life to come. Even now we have fellowship with God and with one another in Jesus Christ. What will it be like in the age to come?
All of this is a challenge to us in our sin today. Even now we could be enjoying greater communion with God and with one another, yet we generally choose to limit our engagement with Christ and His family, making it a more manageable part of a balanced life. At least in part, this is due to the limitations of living in a world that is still feeling the effects of the fall of Adam. Yet we must also admit that this is also a result of our own sin.
It is a cause for great rejoicing that God has addressed both of these issues through the victory of the salvation won for us by Christ. The Lord will one day remove from us every sinful impulse. Our desires, thoughts, determinations, and actions will be completely holy. We will also live in a place of such perfect provision and communion with the Almighty that there will be no remaining limitation upon our enjoyment of God and His people. This is the Lord’s eternal plan and His sovereign promise. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has moved us past the barrier of death, and has secured for us an age of overwhelming and delightful goodness.
This is the moment we have been waiting for. Up to this point, much of what we have seen through this vision could have been interpreted literally. Now we are forced to consider whether there needs to be a symbolic understanding of the image that is described here. Normally water flowing from unexpected places in a building is not considered to be good news. Here the water is very good news. This water speaks of the impact of something that brings freshness proceeding from the temple and going out into the world.
The water was trickling out on the south side of the temple. What is most striking in Ezekiel’s examination of the water is the way that it seems to expand as he is brought to measure it. For the first thousand cubits it is easy to walk through, since it only reaches up to his ankles. Like a very broad and expansive seashore on a gentle coast, it seems like a person could walk out a long distance and still not encounter any dramatic shift in the depth of the water. After another thousand cubits it is still only knee deep. When the water is waist deep after another thousand cubits, it is easy to imagine a different feeling for the observer. Normally when water begins to go above our waist we have an increased sense of caution. Here there is no concern expressed, just as the existence of water flowing out from the temple was never said to be a sign of some trouble, which we might have reasonably expected. Instead of running back to dry land, the description makes us want to keep on going, even with increasing speed and anticipation. After another thousand feet the water is almost over our heads, but there is no talk of danger or drowning.
What can be done now? The answer is obvious. This is wonderful river of temple water, and we want to dive into it. We want to swim. This is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. This river is so great because God is in the midst of this place. This is not the raging dangerous sea of the world. This is the eternal city of God, and we are safe here. This is where we want to be, and we are very happy.
The properties of this river are most amazing. There are very many trees on the banks of the river. That would not surprise us. But there is no fresh water river with so much power to clean in it that it makes the waters of the seas and the oceans fresh wherever it flows. This river is full of good living things, and wherever it goes it brings life. What will happen to us if we are in this river? Can it mean anything less than eternal life for us? Any salt that remains seems to be left there on purpose. There are great trees here for food all year long, and leaves that do not wither, leaves that will be used for the healing of the nations.
Of course we should want to be residents of any kingdom that had such a great river. Where is this city? Where is this river that flows from a temple? This is not a temple that man can build. The water that comes from this temple is not like any other river known in this present age. What does it all mean? What has God been showing over these many chapters since He described to us a mighty resurrection of dry bones in Ezekiel 37? He is speaking to us of the resurrection world in the age to come. Flowing from one mighty Source there is more life than we could ever need.
Jesus is that Source, and the streams of living water that flow from the one who believes in Him is the Holy Spirit of God proceeding from the Father and the Son. There is a part of that resurrection life that is coming to us now all over the earth when the good news of the death and resurrection of our Savior is preached and believed. Nonetheless, there is more to come. We do not yet see the fullness of that resurrection city, but we will one day.
There is a land here for a people saved by God’s grace. This place is their inheritance. The borders are not entirely the same as what the Lord had given through Moses and Joshua. Many of the places mentioned are harder to establish. As we saw with some of the new regulations concerning offerings in the temple, there is something here that is not the same as the past. Nonetheless, the people of God in exile were supposed to know that the vision was real. It was physical. When we say that the prophet makes use of symbolism, this is not an effort to spiritualize the blessings of God’s promises into the realm of mere feelings. The land of resurrection will be intensely physical. Isn’t that the point of resurrection? As true as it is that it is better for our bodies on earth to die now so that our souls will be with the Lord in heaven, we can never be satisfied with our final state as disembodied spirits. Christ died for the purpose of a greater resurrection. That new life will be forever physical though we may use symbols to describe it now.
The good news is that you and I have a place in this new world. We have been touched by the river of God’s Spirit. We will swim in those waters. We will be healed by those leaves. We will eat that fruit, and enjoy the fish. We will live. Is this because we were all born as descendants of Israel? No, only by our second birth in Christ will any of us have a place in this great nation. We were sojourners, but through faith in Jesus Christ we have settled in Immanuel’s land. Let us make our dwellings even now alongside this great river, and let us bring up our children as those who have a wonderful inheritance among the people of God.
The people of God in the days of Ezekiel were described according to the tribal names which are the names of the sons of Jacob. When we follow the story of these men through the book of Genesis, we see that they could never have merited an eternal inheritance according to their own merit. When Jacob gives his final words of blessing to his sons prior to his death, he is very forthright in discussing their sins and the consequences for the future of their actions.
A good example of this is Jacob’s first-born son Reuben. Genesis 49:3-4 says, “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it- he went up to my couch!” Reuben had an immoral liaison with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. When you think of the words of Jacob from Genesis 49 and realize that these two verses were all that a dying father had to say about his oldest son, this is a very sad story. “Reuben, what can I say about you? You are my firstborn. You have that position of dignity by birth. You are a strong man. But you slept with Bilhah. You are an unstable man, and you won’t have the position of a first-born any more.”
Many years later Moses spoke words of blessing about the tribes before his departure. In Deuteronomy 33:6 he said, “Let Reuben live, and not die, but let his men be few.” That was all. Again, this was strikingly discouraging. Yet consider this, Reuben has one portion of the new land described in Ezekiel 48, just as all the other tribes. There may be something to the proximity of a tribe to the sanctuary and the holy city. Judah and Benjamin have the spots closest to the temple, one to the north and the other to the south. Yet all of the tribes are given one portion of the same size.
It is shocking to consider that a tribe that is promised trouble in this age is yet represented in a prominent way with all the other tribes in the age to come. There is something in God’s purposes of election that cannot be stopped here, and that is more powerful by far than our own disobedience and the discipline that we face in this age as a result of our rebellion and sin. There is something wonderful about the reality that grace will really be grace, and Reuben and the tribe that bears his name are included in the day when sin is removed from the people of God.
In chapter 47 the river of life proceeded from the sanctuary of the temple. The same point (the centrality of the place of sacrifice and communion with God for all blessing) is shown in this final chapter through the location of the place of God’s presence in what seems to be the center of the land, perhaps the center of the whole earth. The new creation in the age of resurrection is powered by the presence of God. There at the center are the priests and the people of Levi who serve in worship. There is the holy city and the great Prince over the people of God. Here are God and His people together forever, as we have seen in previous chapters. This is a choice portion of the land, for it is holy to the Lord.
The temple, everyone in it, and everything about it reminds us of the one Messiah who became the Lamb of God for us. He was the atoning sacrifice that has made this resurrection world possible. He is also the Prince forever over the entirety of this new land. Take Jesus Christ out of the new age and You have nothing, for every promise of resurrection blessing is centered in Him, in His righteousness, and in His death.
The gates of the holy city are mentioned, each with the name of one of the tribes. Since Levi is included in the list, Joseph stands in for his sons in order to keep the number at twelve. These twelve gates are mentioned by John in Revelation along with the names of the twelve apostles inscribed on the twelve foundations of the city. If we have already said that the temple was glorious, if we have rejoiced in the wonder of the river that flows from it, if we are able to see the greatness of the gates of the city and the territories for the tribes throughout the land, then we will be able to especially rejoice in the final words of the prophet. He tells us the glory of the place in its Name: “Jehovah Shammah” or “The Lord is there.”
Here is the sacred Name of God, indicating His eternal existence. Through the work of God the Son, the city of God has a new name that will never be taken away from her. No more will God have to send warriors against His beloved city. Now forever, the Lord is there. This is the kind of message that Christ gives to the church at the end of Matthew’s gospel, when He promises, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.”
Reuben, despite his sin against his father’s authority, despite his violation of common decency, despite the fact that he was unstable as water, despite his lies to Jacob together with his brothers in the matter of their treatment of Joseph, claiming that Joseph was dead for so many years, despite all of this Reuben has a place in the land to come, in fact his name is on one of the gates of the city! There must be hope for us through our adoption into the household of God through Jesus Christ the Son of God. We are a part of this blessed land. The Lord is surely there, and we are his beloved, and nothing can separate us from His great eternal love.